Front Bumper Removal / Grill Swap - Audi TT (8S)

[moonstone]

This isn't as hard as it seems but it's time consuming. You'll need some torx drivers in various sizes, so I suggest you have a set before tackling this.

First pop the bonnet and remove the bonnet release handle. At the top edge of the handle there's a pushclip that holds the handle in place. Lever this out with a small flat-head screw driver and you can now simply pull the handle off the spindle. IMPORTANT - DO NOT CLOSE THE BONNET WITHOUT THIS HANDLE BEING ON THE SPINDLE OR YOU'LL HAVE A NIGHTMARE GETTING IT OPEN AGAIN!

Next you're going to remove the trim piece around the handle spindle that runs along the top of the grill. You'll pull this up (trim removal tools are best) from the front edge and then pull it up and out towards you. You'll see that the rear edge clips into the top of the airscoop.

With this out of the way, you'll see two torx screws that hold the top of the grill to the chassis. You're going to remove these but it's worth taking a couple of photos first as there's some adjustment back and forth in order to line the top edge up with the lights and bonnet. If you take a couple of pics it'll help as a reference when you re-position it.

Rest of the bumper is held in by screws inside the wheel arches and underneath. It's also clipped into the bodywork. The photos below show you where the screws are that you need to remove:

Each wheel arch has four screws. Three that are horizontal and one that is vertical as shown in the photo below. You can also see where the clip holes are along the top edge from the wheel arch to the headlight location.



You've then got a series of screws underneath the car. My car has a splitter installed, so I opted to keep the "closing section" attached to the bumper by unscrewing the middle screws as shown:



Then you have three on each side as shown here:



Once all of the screws are disconnected, you can pull the bumper out from the body from each side, by pulling from the edge at the wheel arch.

BE CAREFUL - At the passenger side front, your screen washer tube is connected as well as the wiring loom for the pedestrian protection sensor (and parking sensors if you have them). Make sure you don't yank the bumper off fully at the passenger side without first locating and disconnecting these plugs. For the washers, you just squeeze the two blue rectangles on the connector together and pull it off. You'll want to have a bung handy to push inside the tube, otherwise you're screen wash will drain all over the floor.

Installation is simply done in reverse.

 

[moonstone]

Grill Swap

If you're swapping your grill, you need to first gently pull out the headlight washer tube from the polystyrene section that runs along the crash bar cover. Then you can prise out the polystyrene piece. The bottom edge of it is hooked into to loose clips at either side of the grill.

Next you need to remove the brackets that are on either side of the grill around the headlight washers (if fitted). These are held in place by a couple of screws and some clips. Fairly obvious when you look at them. You don't need to go to the trouble of removing the washer tube, you can just pull the brackets away from the bumper and leave them loose. This is because they overlap the rear of the grill so need to be moved out of the way to get the grill off the bumper.

There are now a number of screws along the grill edge that you need to remove. Once done, you'll also see a number of tabs clipped in along the edges. Remove these using a small flat head screwdriver, taking care not break any. The grill will now just pull free.

Installing your new grill

This is quite a finnicky job. The tabs at the bottom edge are difficult to fully engage especially if you clip the grill into the top first, so my advice is to clip it into the tabs on the bottom edge first and work your way up. You'll need a bit of pressure on that bottom edge and I used a small flathead screwdriver to pull the tabs all the way through. Then just screw it back together in place.

IMPORTANT - Remember that there's a screw that goes through each side bracket into the grill. Don't make this mistake of screwing these into before you clip those brackets into place.

EDIT: - I've had a few enquiries about after market grills so thought I share a bit of a guide on these:

Essentially, there seem to be three doing the rounds. Now it's important to remember that there are many resellers of these types of products across the net but no-one and I mean no-one makes a branded Honeycombe grill. They're all no-name copies made by various Chinese factories. So if you pick one of the three popular types, it really doesn't matter if you buy from eBay, AliExpress or a UK reseller. Fact is many companies selling these on their UK websites are importing them in from China and selling them on at big mark-up. You do get the peace of mind that you're dealing with a UK company if there's any problems but its the same part that you can get cheaper direct from China, ebay etc.

GRILL OPTIONS

In terms of the choices available, there are three types.

1. TTRS Grill Copy (BEST OPTION FOR AN OEM LOOK)



This is a fairly faithful representation of the OEM TTRS grill. You'll notice that the grill is stepped in at the bottom. This allows for the proper "scooped" section at the bottom of the frame. This fitted my own TTS perfectly with me only having to cut two small pegs at the very top (that you can't see in the photo above) so that it would mate with the trim that goes around the bonnet release handle. You also need to trim the bottom intake section of your bumper with a dremel (but that's the case with all of the aftermarket grills).

The link that I purchased this from is https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/265326016407

This grill doesn't come with a crash bar cover, but you can by the proper OEM one from Audi for only £50. The crash bar cover is essential as it covers the polystyrene section detailed in the post above and the parking sensor wiring etc. The above grill comes with dummy sensors as well so you dont have holes on non-front PDC cars.

The part number for OEM crash bar cover is 8S0807217E and it's looks like this below. This just clips into place on the above grill.



2. Flat Honeycombe grill with no stepped section at the bottom



This is a flat fronted honeycombe grill with a slightly different design. You can see that the lines of the honeycomb double up against each other. This makes it a good grill to screw a model plaque into as you can use two small screws between the honeycomb lines for a TTS or TTRS badge. This grill should also fit fine but I've no personal experience of it myself. It also comes with a crash bar cover pre-attached. The surround follows the same design as the standard OEM grill which means it lines up properly along the bottom edges etc.

3. Hybrid Grill (combo of both of the above)



This is the first grill that I fitted to my car. Contrary to the photo above, it comes with the same crash bar cover pre-mounted as per the one above. I wasn't happy with this grill and I don't recommend it. Firstly because it doesn't fit properly. Because there's no step in at the bottom but it still has a scooped trim, it means that the grill sticks out at the bottom. It doesn't faithfully follow the vertical lines of the front bumper, instead it starts to jut out as you go down and that bottom part with the "Quattro" logo embossed, doesn't marry up to the bottom of the grill. It sticks out and there's a gap that you can get a finger in between the bottom of the grill and the bumper.

Lot's of people have this and are fine with it as it's not that noticeable to others, but if details like this are important to you, you won't be happy with this.

 

[boba fett]

This is brilliant and much needed seen as I am going to do this Tuesday.

I will probably break tabs, along with the washer bottle and shut my bonnet with the handle off!