OEM Taiwan Altis Grill for sale.....

Hey, welcome to the board! I'm one of those "old farts" too I guess, but sure don't plan on acting like it! Having too much fun re-living my old car days.

Earlier I posted I'd bet a dollar whomever bid that much on the grill wouldn't pay...good thing not everyone took me up on it! I'll find one of those grills sooner or later.

ToyMan,

Oh, yeah, I'll be paying for the grille, no problems with that!

Actually, we could dispense a little "eBay advice" around here -- let me toss in just a little bit:

Gosh, guys, stop this "bidding early" stuff!!!! :!: Just think about one very simple eBay fact of life:

If you place a bid any time before the very last few seconds of an eBay auction, what are you inviting? -- "A higher bid," to beat yours. A couple of guys get into a bidding war, and what happens? The thing just goes up and up and up.

Now, look at my bid -- within the last ten seconds of that auction:

http://cgi6.ebay.com/ebaymotors/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&item=2421400291

Don't give anyone a chance to see your bid and bid more -- just decide how much you can possibly go for, wait for the last seconds, then let it fly!

Yes, this is commonly known as "sniping," but it is the only way of bidding that makes any sense!! Unless, that is, you WANT to pay more than you'd really have to!! Again, if you'd rather not pay a higher price for your eBay item, just let it sit there like a rock, and hope that nobody else will go as ballistic as you at the very end.

Anyway, "works for me." If you do a lot of eBay buying, it won't take you very long to realize how much better it is to wait until the very end!

thoots

You're right...wait until the closing seconds and plug in as much as you're willing to pay. I've got a couple hundred buys, very rarely do I lose when I want something bad enough.

There is always software that will do the sniping for you. I don't use it, you have to plug in just a little more personal information then I want to hand someone who's willing to write software like that.

Hey Welcome to tha Board thoots!! 8) I see ur the one who won that auction at such a high price.....But if u got tha dough its all good and besides u can definitely make ur car look nice and different with that grill. 8)

Folks,

OK, here's the update! I got the grille, and got it installed without much problem. Just a little elbow grease was needed to get the grille and the bumper cover all lined up in order to screw everything back together. Same with the middle screw/connector -- just a little elbow grease to get that lined up with the new grille, and then I had it. So, let's get on with the pictures!

Before:



After:



Looks good to me! More pictures to come.....

thoots

very nice thoots!

only thing i ask...can u resize the pics before u upload them? they're huge and it took about 3 minutes for them to completely show up on my connection...i hate dialup :x

Here are a couple more pictures. I'm not entirely happy with the light -- dang, I'll have to take MORE pictures!! :twisted:





thoots

Zero,

Hehehe. I did resize these! :twisted: All the way down from 4-megapixel size to "only" 1024 x 768! Yeah, dialup sucks!

Anyway, I got the second round of pictures posted before I saw your message -- I suppose I could go down to 800 x 600... :wink:

More details to come!

thoots

Not sure I'd pay as much as you did for it, but wow does that look sharp!

OK.

So, this seller has another grille up on eBay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=33645&item=2422773891

Not sure if anyone here is in on this one again like the last one, but I can provide a few more details if anyone's interested:

Seller is from Vancouver, Canada. He shipped via Canada Post -- it winds up as "US Mail" here in the US. The winner might consider asking to pay more for faster shipping, as it took 4 days to get to Oregon -- about a six-hour drive down Interstate 5. On the other hand, four days wasn't bad.

Now, the seller says this auction does not include the "Toyota logo," but you don't need that as the existing one will "bolt on." I was skeptical about that, but after seeing both grilles, that's close to the case. Check out this close-up of the back of the new grille:



You can see three little "clips" that hold the logo to the grille -- those are just "formed" on the back of the logo, and ought to allow it to pop right off and right on from one grille to another. Here's a similar close-up of the back of the old grille:



Again, you see the three little clips, though the bottom one is obscured in this photo. At any rate, the claim that you can switch logos appears to be fully reliable. Not that I've actually tried this, as my grille indeed did come with the new logo installed.

Otherwise, about the only thing remaining I can mention is how the box the grille came in had evidence of stamps and postmarks from Taiwan -- as we all figured, this must be an Altis grille from Taiwan. Indeed!

I hope this helps -- please let me know if you have any questions about these grilles, and I'll be glad to let you know what I can figure out!

thoots

OK!

Pictures have been resized down to 800 x 600 or thereabouts. Did most of that just by cropping closer, so no quality loss...

Refresh if you dare! :twisted:

thoots

ToyMan,

Hehehe. This was a hair over 150 bucks with shipping and so on. I'd call it about the best 150 bucks I've ever spent...

I'm definitely happy with how much it was and how it turned out!

thoots

It did turn out superb, definately adds a Touch of Class to the front end!

I'm just saying, I'm racking my (limited) brains trying to get them for the $40.00 US they go for in Taiwan. No way faulting you for paying what you did! There's just gotta be a way!

Thanks for the DIY on the emblem. I'll be keeping this post close-by when it comes my turn!

J

very nice grill thoots, it matches the car pretty well
now i want 1 for my blue rolla too 8)

Thanks for the good words, everyone. I got some more pictures taken this afternoon, with results I like a whole lot better. I'll go ahead and post a bunch in the "Pictures of your Corolla" forum, but let me end it here with this one:





thoots

Someone might be interested in this auction.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=33645&item=2424049078