AMG:

I have painted my plastic grill on the 280 SE, and it looks really nice; however, I left the chrome surround in its ntaural chrome state.

Lee is right, but it's not as if the chrome protests the presence of paint. Chrome is a very dense and smooth surface, being compose primariily of nickel. Therefore, it is too smooth to accept paint. You might wish to rough it up with emery cloth or fine sandpaper. This will give it some "tooth" to which the paint will adhere. But be aware that once you do roughen up the chrome, you can't go back to chrome if you don't like the results; at least, you would have to re-chrome.

Also, Lee is right that your grill takes lots of abuse from road debris; though my grill is painted black, I do have to occassionally touch it up with black paint. I suspect this is why MB chooses to keep the grill unpainted plastic - it being homogeneous throughout, and rock chips will never show on the grey plastic. But when the touch up paint and the grill are black, one cannot see any of these "repairs".

try it, you might like it.......Andras