Little guide for those who are wanting to fit radiator/chargecooler mesh protection. Bumper removal
Having originally gone down to bmw and asked for a contribution towards retrofitting the new oem bmw rock guards I had no joy after over a month of promised return phone calls blah blah blah.. you know how that bit goes bmw customer service is shocking at best. So I gave up after a over month and went down to halfrauds to buy some mesh.
Aluminium black mesh 1m x 0.25m times two - £25 each
First off you need to get the car jacked up and both front wheels off 17mm deep socket and breaker bar needed. This can prove some what difficult as there aren't very many places to get axle stands under to support the car. I found there was just enough room to get them on the subframe.
Now open the bonnet. There's a rubber strip at the front of the engine bay that needs to be removed simpley pulls up. Now six torx screws are visible, remove these.
Next the front wheel liners need to come out, these are 8mm screws, there are multiple screws but all visible and obvious as to what you need to remove.
Now the wheel liners off there are two long 8mm screws which hold the bumper to the front wing, these need to come out. They are in a awkward position to get to I found a swivel head attachment on a socket helped.
Underneath the car now there's multiple 8mm screws, again it's obvious which needs removing. Once these are out the bumpers ready to be removed, gently ease it forward if you have parking sensors these will need unplugging.
Time to fit the aluminium mesh, I cut roughly to size using tin snips leaving the mesh slightly larger so there was no visible edge once the bumpers back on.
Simply cable tie where you thinks necessary to support the mesh.
For the kidney grill protection I cable tied the mesh to the vbrace bars so I could still remove the kidney grills if needed to gain access to anything.
Refitting the bumper is reverse of the above process.
Happy with the result, doesn't look out of place and barley visible. Took around 2 hours start to finish, not a overly difficult job I managed it on my own it's just more time consuming.
Having originally gone down to bmw and asked for a contribution towards retrofitting the new oem bmw rock guards I had no joy after over a month of promised return phone calls blah blah blah.. you know how that bit goes bmw customer service is shocking at best. So I gave up after a over month and went down to halfrauds to buy some mesh.
Aluminium black mesh 1m x 0.25m times two - £25 each
First off you need to get the car jacked up and both front wheels off 17mm deep socket and breaker bar needed. This can prove some what difficult as there aren't very many places to get axle stands under to support the car. I found there was just enough room to get them on the subframe.
Now open the bonnet. There's a rubber strip at the front of the engine bay that needs to be removed simpley pulls up. Now six torx screws are visible, remove these.
Next the front wheel liners need to come out, these are 8mm screws, there are multiple screws but all visible and obvious as to what you need to remove.
Now the wheel liners off there are two long 8mm screws which hold the bumper to the front wing, these need to come out. They are in a awkward position to get to I found a swivel head attachment on a socket helped.
Underneath the car now there's multiple 8mm screws, again it's obvious which needs removing. Once these are out the bumpers ready to be removed, gently ease it forward if you have parking sensors these will need unplugging.
Time to fit the aluminium mesh, I cut roughly to size using tin snips leaving the mesh slightly larger so there was no visible edge once the bumpers back on.
Simply cable tie where you thinks necessary to support the mesh.
For the kidney grill protection I cable tied the mesh to the vbrace bars so I could still remove the kidney grills if needed to gain access to anything.
Refitting the bumper is reverse of the above process.
Happy with the result, doesn't look out of place and barley visible. Took around 2 hours start to finish, not a overly difficult job I managed it on my own it's just more time consuming.
