Its plastic
Its chrome'd
its plastic chrome'd
its a different process than the electro plating like you would do to a metal bumper. It is a film that "adheres" to the plastic but it can peel, tons of ford pickup grilles peel, like its pretty common with age. I replaced mine on my 2012 years ago it was doing something similar. Its just kinda part of it, basically, you got 245,000 miles out of it, it still works as intended, its not a mission critical part, its only cosmetic. If you are like 65% of owners, your paint on your front end is chipping and peeling and getting cancer... This part is no different, while it looks unsightly, its simply a cosmetic part and offers zero gain regardless of which way it looks. They can be replaced if it worries you bad enough, but its just a cosmetic piece. The TRD Sport models come painted to match the body color, if you want to order one painted to match your body color and ditch the chrome you could try that.