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Alright, Alright, Alright. Its done. The swap was completed.
Now let me give you the rundown, what parts, etc..
The part you'll need is P/N: 5310124180
Thats It.
Now for the step. You're going to need to put the car on ramps or jack stands or something to give your self some more room. Its optional, but recommended.
Remove the front bumper cover. There are tons of videos on this, more specifically, there is a really good one from @specONE on the 3IS side. Its the exact same process on both cars. Id rather you just watch that video to find out how to do it rather than me try to explain it haha.
Once you get the bumper cover off, set some towels on the ground so you dont scratch any paint. Set the bumper face down on towels. there are about 15 or 20 screws that hold the grille into the bumper cover. I started from the bottom and worked my way around. Remove every silver screw you see. Some are not necessary, which you can probably figure out, as the silver ones that arent necessary are the ones that fasten the DRL's, and the air ducts down to the cover. Just remove all the ones you see in the grille area. After all these are out, there are a crap ton of clips that need to be pryed away from the grille in order for it to come off. Its not to difficult. The first piece youre going to want to remove are the corner chrome pieces, then the bottom silver piece, then the surrounding chromes. KEEP THE CORNER CHROMES. Youll need those for the new grille. The corner chromes and center emblem are reused on the new grille, as well as all the screws and rubber seal. After all of this, you should be able to press the center grille section away from the bumper cover with relatively no issues if you made sure to keep the tabs pryed away and not broken. Remove the front emblem as well, its two screws and a clip.
Next step, if youre doing anything I did, was to install the emblem, and was to remove the chromes from the new grille as well, for paint.
Same process as before, just on the new grille. Here it is getting painted:
I got the last layer of clear on around 10 PM. Set my alarm this morning for 5 AM for the install.
Once all of the chromes were painted, it was time for re install. The next step is to press the new grille onto the bumper cover, without any of the chromes installed. pretty easy, you just set the bumper face up this time, and just push it in.
Before I went to bed for the night, and after I got the last layer of clear on, I got some VHB foam tape and reapplied it to the rubber seal that sits between the bumper and the hood.
Then I put it on the new grille.
At this point, its 5 AM, im super tired, and not really functional yet. Takes me a solid 15 minutes to figure out which way the grille chromes go back on(It goes on one way and its super obvious which way it it, im just exhausted, lol)
Put the chromes back in, corner pieces first, then the surround piece, then the bottom piece. Make sure all the pieces snap into their clips. After this, flip the bumper cover back face down, and reinstall all the screws that needed to be removed to take off the old grille. There is a plastic bracket thing that spans the width of the BASE MODEL GRILLE that is not needed for the Fsport one. Disregard it and just put the screws in as placeholders.
This is what you should be looking at after. Next step is to reinstall the bumper cover in the same way you took it off. Pretty straight forward.
Let me know if you have any questions! More pics:
Did you have to get the same year f sport grill as your car? Or does it really matter?
MyLParts has the genuine lexus F-sport grill for slightly more...$850ish. I would do that before getting off ebay saving <$100. Removal should not be that hard. The interwebs will have videos and walk throughs.
I have a 2016 RC 200t and I have the same base model grill and I'm trying to get the F sport grill instead. But I can't find it ANYWHERE... I need the grill style that doesn't have the fog light option.
I have a 2016 RC 200t and I have the same base model grill and I'm trying to get the F sport grill instead. But I can't find it ANYWHERE... I need the grill style that doesn't have the fog light option.
this is the part number: 5310124180
I posted it in my write up above, if you read it.
Bell Lexus has it:
https://parts.belllexusnorthscottsdale.com/p/Lexus__RC-200t/Grille/62931095/5310124180.html
So it comes in pieces like this instead of a whole grill? I'm new at this and Lexus.. Sorry about the questions
correct, it has to be assembled. Keeps it from breaking in transit. Has to be screwed into your bumper cover anyways, so even if they did ship it assembled, you’d have to disassemble it again to install it.