What most people don't realize is that these grills were not made the same way that originals were made.
Originals were injection molded from ABS plastic, the process for those not familiar is as follows;
A VERY large steel mold is made in the shape of the grill, this mold is basically two halves which, interlock, and seal closed tightly under tons of pressure making a hollow cavity. A typical A&B half injection mold can be simple in appearance but actually can be a very complex articulating puzzle of precision made steel parts that open and close as each part is molded and removed. Most of these tools also have a complex series of water pathways just like a giant radiator for cooling around the mold cavities so that the molten resin quickly returns back into a solid. All of this custom precision maching work can end up being a VERY expensive, one of a kind, high precision injection mold/tool.
The cost for re-creating such a tool would easily be in the 6 figures (my guess for a tool so large would be 200-500K...No kidding, even in China!). Once the mold is done you'd still need to find a company who does custom injection molding with not only the proper size press to run the parts (it's rare to find available press time on a 2,000-4,000 ton press which is as big as a small house) but who is also willing to set up this huge press for a miniscule run of a couple thousand parts which would only take a couple days to accomplish (most of these presses are set up with a tool to run a single part 24/7 for weeks on end without interuption).
In most cases the material used in this process begins as a powder or solid pellet of plastic (ABS in this case). The plastic is fed into the machine via a funnel traveling into the screw & barrel of the press where it is then heated under pressure until it is a liquid. It is then shot into the mold under high pressure and fills the mold where it quickly hardens to a solid again. The mold then opens and releases the new part.
The properties of any plastic are unique, each plastic resin (and there are many thousands of blends) is specifically engineered and chosen to withstand various environmental conditions according to the desired end use application. In this case ABS was chosen because it is tough, chemical resistant and would hold up well in extreme envirnonmental conditions (freezing to hot sunny weather).
Now, onto how Premeire Plastics made thiers. A TOTALLY different method.
Rather than starting with dimentions/blue prints (how the original mold was made) or by using a modern digital file of the part itself which would be used to recreate a steel (or aluminum) tool like the originals made from, they simply took an existing original grill, build a box around it with space for mold material, and poured in a type of liquid silicone rubber to mold around the original part. Once the rubber set up the mold was pulled open, and the original part was removed which left a part shaped cavity. This cavity was then filled with a two part liquid casting urethane. Once the urethane set up the part was then pulled from the silicone mold and what you have is a cast Urethane reproduction grill. Sounds nice until you consider a few major differences between these and originals. The part will not be the same size as an ABS part, there WILL be small dimensional differences due to the material shrink variables from an ABS part to a cast Urethane part, your new grill will be some amount smaller than an original, may not be a large amount, but smaller it will be. This can affect how well your original trim fits (or doesn't fit). Also, due to the Urethane having different properties as compared to the original ABS injection molded material you could have cracking issues, heat warpage issues (most likely) or chemical resistance issues with common automotive products that may end up on the part (like gas & oil).
Now those are your problems, the problems Premeire might have had could have stemmed from customer complaints accordingly or simply from production headaches. These silicone molds degrade from use VERY fast, they were never meant to be production tooling, most are designed simply to make cost effective prototypes to prove a design before building an expensive steel high volume injection mold tool. If they got 30 good grills from one mold before it was deemed worthless I'd be suprised. Then a new mold would need to be make using the original grill again (using a reproduction for this, being somewhat dimensionally smaller, would not make a good pattern). Maybe they no longer have an original around?
*I have heard those who say Premeire claims to have built an aluminum mold for these. If that be the case I'd be VERY surprised to hear it, especially since they claim the tool is now worn out and unusable (which would not be the case if an aluminum tool is used for casting parts) and since they do admit the parts are actually castings and not injection moded.
Due to their reproduction grills having the factory appearing injection molded ejector pin marks (created in the original parts by steel pins that help eject the part from the injection molds) it is obvious that the mold they used for casting was cast off of an original part as these marks were transfered into the silicone mold and then onto the cast parts. Obviously you can't pour molten aluminum over an original plastic part to create these subtle marks in the mold so a Silicone mold was used, pretty much an open and shut case.
Anyway, just my $2.50 worth
