My front bumper was pretty well peppered with rock chips and paint dings all over. One of the fog lamps was shattered and not working due to being water-logged 
With a new pair of fog lights costing upwards of $110, I decided to shop around for a new front bumper as I had heard through Bimmerfest these could be had for as little as $150. Sure enough, DDM Tuning in San Diego had a reproduction of an M5 bumper for that price and it included the fog lamps! After a $300 2-stage paint job, my Bimmer was going to get a facelift for under $500. Since I would be doing the installation work myself, I saved probably an additional $250 in labor too. Soooooo…..with that savings in hand, I decided to upgrade the headlights to the late model “Angel Eyes” look; with European-style clear corners. This completes the updated look with the new clear lenses I had installed for the tail lights and side markers.
Installation includes assembling the M5 bumper fog lamps and grill. The only marked difference between this Taiwanese repo-bumper and the OEM M5/M-Tech grill is the missing T-bar. For $150, I can deal with it. The importer also states this bumper only has a cost of $38, and most of the mark-up is due to getting it from A to B to C….Other importers are charging as much as $350 for exactly the same product, plus the cost of shipping (as much as $175.) Since San Diego is local to me, I was able to pick it up and throw it in the car.
I wasn’t too thrilled with the way the grill is affixed to the bumper….small tabs and washers…I ended up breaking a few of both and resorted to using zip-ties…not too happy with that but it will make do. I’ll have to revisit this though since over time, these plastic zip-ties will dry up and crack then fail….
The fog lamps are not plug-n-play. The M5 uses a 9007 lamp. This 9007 connector is needed and has to be spliced in to the existing wiring for the OEM 9005 connectors.
Installation is fairly straight-forward and takes about an hour. I had some trouble making the necessary adjustments to get this to line up precisely as it’s a very tight fit, but will deem this acceptable for the moment…
The Angel Eyes installation did not go so smoothly. I spent hours splicing wires and running around here and there for additional electrical parts (did not think this one through thoroughly beforehand). Got some help from Swhell on Bimmerfest since these things do not come with instructions..
I ended up making an additional 9006 connector by tapping into the constant positive lead going to the turn signals in order to run the halos. It wasn’t an exact fit, but I made it work and it’s weather-sealed so it’s all good. The low and high beams were plug-n-play.
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