The grille was purchased off ebay about 2.5 weeks ago and it came as you see it with the painted surround on a lariat grille. I believe it was actually listed by someone on this forum.

 

nice upgrades!

 

XL to XLT in a day

 

Nice mod.

 

Much better!!!

 

Sweet man, looks like a totally different truck.

 

ha, ha no kidding.

 

and a painted bumper as well; nicely done.

 

But a year of being patient to get a reasonable price for painting.

 

200-250?

 

Everybody where I am is asking $400 to paint just the cover which was way to much for a cosmetic mod for me. I swear I went to every local paint shop. I purchased a new PTM cover and ended up paying $75 for paint over the internet! There is that saying ... you get what you pay for. I hope it holds up.

 

400 is OUTRAGEOUS!!!!!, were the parts seperate or did they quote you time to pull them off too? I had my tonneau cover and roll pan both painted for $500 as a walk in, I think my tonneau was around 300 and the rollpan was about 200

 

$400 was for walk-in carrying the bumper cover in. This did not include removal or installation. That's why it took me so long to complete this mod, the paint shops were all smoking the same chit!

 

Maybe this is a silly question, but why did FORD go to that ugly black unpainted crap in the first place?

 

When I bought the truck, I selected an option called "Work-Truck Package" and it came with the black plastic on the front. Selecting this package caused the price to drop $1k. I don't think it's an option anymore for the XL truck, I think they all come with the black front now. I believe the only motivation for putting black on the front is for cost reasons.