My 97 C280 has a plastic egg crate grille with aluminum trim strips, chrome body. The plastic is getting grainy ( can see glass strands ) and I'd like to paint it. I'd need some sort of matte / flat paint as shine might not look so good.

Any thoughts on color? Some sort of silvery gray would work but I'm not sure what shade. Argent a silvery sometimes metallic might work.

The car is 702 Smoke Silver so I'd be tempted to paint it that color.

The plastic bumper and trim parts on my W201 are all metallic base colours with no gloss top coat. This seems to be a common thing for the plastic bits.

There are, however, decent matte top coats out there that can give a bit more protection on top of the base coat.

As for colour I'd be wary of painting even more of the smoke silver, as you might end up with a very bland looking car. Young lads were painting everything matte black a few years back. But now even they think it is too gangster - it could be an option though off setting the silver.

If you are not sure about how things are going to look sprayable plastic products like plasti-dip can provide a quick and easy to remove way of changing colour. If you like the plasti-dip you can even buy a fixer that makes it a bit more durable (and harder to remove).

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1992 W201 190E 1.8 171,000 km - Daily driver
1981 W123 300D ~ 100,000 miles / 160,000 km - project car stripped to the bone
1965 Land Rover Series 2a Station Wagon CIS recovery therapy!
1961 Volvo PV544 Bare metal rat rod-ish thing

I'm here to chat about cars and to help others - I'm not here "to always be right" like an internet warrior



Don't leave that there - I'll take it to bits!

Smoke silver is more of a golden color with a bit of black that straight silver. Paint something silver, hold it over a fire, and let it carbon up a bit.

The grille has a chrome surround with 3 horz and 1 vert thin aluminum strips, just the checkered portion is plastic to be painted. .