Jake's M-Sport X5 35i Build Thread

[suspenceful]

First round of mods have been installed!

Paint-matched reflectors were at the top of my to-do list. I ordered a pair from Mὁdbargains for $20 less than IND, but they just come from IND anyways (ryansbmw you were right!). For some reason, I never took a picture of them as they arrived, but the finish was excellent. They use OEM reflectors and color match them in-house.

However, cars with the side cameras have a section above the reflector that remains unpainted. Not sure why, but BMW outlined this area with silver trim. I hate this silver trim, especially on a dark-colored car. It just draws your eye to a random silver square on the bumper. Nothing a little Plasti-Dip can't fix. Here's a photo before I sprayed the top section.



Next up was the LED fog lights. I ordered this set from Amazon and the quality was perfect. Installation was super easy. The fog light grilles just pop right off giving you access to both the light and the bumper reflectors. The bumper reflectors required a heat gun to pop off.



Before:



After:



The LED fog lights do trigger an error code upon startup, but I will code that out with the Carly app. More information on that to follow.

Before:



After:







Another gripe of mine is that a car made in 2013 still has regular halogen interior bulbs. It looks so dated. So I bought this LED interior kit from Amazon and loved the result.









And lastly, I did the "golf-tee" muffler mod... except it's not a golf-tee at all. These N55 X5's require you to zip-tie the actuator arm open. I didn't trust a plastic zip-tie, so I used a metal one.



I was actually very surprised when I started the car up after doing this mod. It's a lot louder, but it sounds great. Exhaust comes out of both tips and cold starts are noisy now! Best part is, it's completely reversible if you don't like it. Just remove the zip-tie.

[boneca]

great start, pretty much everybody start the same (reminded me few years ago)

[Smonkbmw]

Agh, I definitely need to do something with my reflectors, that looks awesome!!

[jiggz]

The front reflectors looks great - that was the first mod I did on mine too.

Where did you get the front reflectors? I don't think I've seen a painted front E70 reflector with the cameras where the camera portion didn't still have the chrome/silver surround - these look great totally blacked out! Mine doesn't have the side-view cameras, but in the pics I've seen the camera still has the chrome/silver border.

The pics in iND appear to show the surround trim piece -
https://ind-distribution.com/product...ND-E70LCI-FREF

Here's a Carbon Black E70 that was listed here for sale sometime back with the painted front reflectors - yours looks much better -
https://www.xbimmers.com/forums/show...ighlight=Dinan

[suspenceful]

Thanks guys!

Originally Posted by jiggz

The front reflectors looks great - that was the first mod I did on mine too.

Where did you get the front reflectors? I don't think I've seen a painted front E70 reflector with the cameras where the camera portion didn't still have the chrome/silver surround - these look great totally blacked out! Mine doesn't have the side-view cameras, but in the pics I've seen the camera still has the chrome/silver border.

The pics in iND appear to show the surround trim piece -
https://ind-distribution.com/product...ND-E70LCI-FREF

Here's a Carbon Black E70 that was listed here for sale sometime back with the painted front reflectors - yours looks much better -
https://www.xbimmers.com/forums/show...ighlight=Dinan

They came with the top portion being unpainted, if you read my post I talk about how I masked off the reflector part and used Plasti-Dip to cover up the silver surround. Glad you like it as much as I do!

[jiggz]

Originally Posted by suspenceful

Thanks guys!



They came with the top portion being unpainted, if you read my post I talk about how I masked off the reflector part and used Plasti-Dip to cover up the silver surround. Glad you like it as much as I do!

Somehow I glossed right over that part and straight to the pics

Nice work, looks great.

[Smonkbmw]

Tried to code out the fogs and still have a bulb out warning. I was using the fog light voltage monitoring feature, was this wrong? Let me know if you have success.

[suspenceful]

Originally Posted by Smonkbmw

Tried to code out the fogs and still have a bulb out warning. I was using the fog light voltage monitoring feature, was this wrong? Let me know if you have success.

I believe the fog light voltage monitoring feature just prevents the LEDs from flickering upon startup. The car sends out some small power pulses to every light on the car as part of the "bulb check" routine. The power isn't enough to actually turn the bulbs on, but it's enough for the ECU to find out if they're burnt out or not. Since LEDs require less power to turn on, this routine usually causes aftermarket LED bulbs to flicker upon startup during that bulb check.

The feature you used should just prevent the flickering, but not the actual code itself. Once I code them out, I'll let you know what the feature is called. I can't remember it off the top of my head, but I've done it on previous BMWs.

[suspenceful]

I bought and installed a set of cheap gloss black grilles. I like the look, even though the stock grilles weren't that bad.



You also might notice that I got the front windows tinted to match the rears.





And I also bought an ///M gear selector indicator piece. Being an M-Sport, I thought it'd match the steering wheel nicely.

[9vapors]

Looking good man, the only thing on the exterior is the roof rails not paint matched stands out an awful lot... I'm going to be removing mine here shortly, and we happen to have the same color...

[jiggz]

Looks good, especially the front tint, gotta do that to match the rears.

[suspenceful]

Originally Posted by 9vapors

Looking good man, the only thing on the exterior is the roof rails not paint matched stands out an awful lot... I'm going to be removing mine here shortly, and we happen to have the same color...

Gah, the X5M looks so much better than the M-Sport.

The roof rails have always bothered me. I've been torn between painting them black, wrapping them black, or removing them. Removing them would be the most work, and most expensive to do right.

I'd love to see some before/after pictures once you remove them!

[boneca]

Looking good there!

now look in to aero kit, u can pick one up for few hundreds on eBay and it will transfer front and rear end of the car in a big way!

keep it coming

[9vapors]

Originally Posted by suspenceful

Gah, the X5M looks so much better than the M-Sport.

The roof rails have always bothered me. I've been torn between painting them black, wrapping them black, or removing them. Removing them would be the most work, and most expensive to do right.

I'd love to see some before/after pictures once you remove them!

$263 for all the parts to delete them, $300 for my body shop to remove/install the deletes... not too bad.

[suspenceful]

Originally Posted by boneca

Looking good there!

now look in to aero kit, u can pick one up for few hundreds on eBay and it will transfer front and rear end of the car in a big way!

keep it coming

Are you sure there is an aero-kit for the M-Sport body? I know there is a kit for the regular X5, but wasn't aware of one for an M-Sport.

Originally Posted by 9vapors

$263 for all the parts to delete them, $300 for my body shop to remove/install the deletes... not too bad.

I'll be looking forward to your results! I will say that yours already looks better than mine with black rails instead of my chrome.

[suspenceful]

It's first snowfall. Not bad at all with the Continental DWS06 all seasons. I have some Pirelli Scorpion snow tires that I'll swap on this weekend.

[ryansbmw]

Originally Posted by suspenceful

You also might notice that I got the front windows tinted to match the rears.

What % tint do you do on the front?

[suspenceful]

Originally Posted by ryansbmw

What % tint do you do on the front?

My tint guy said 35% was the closest match. If you look really close, it looks slightly darker but no one would ever notice unless I told them.

[ryansbmw]

Originally Posted by suspenceful

My tint guy said 35% was the closest match. If you look really close, it looks slightly darker but no one would ever notice unless I told them.

Interesting. Thanks. I keep seeing people say 35% but the tint on the rear of my car looks much lighter for some reason. Maybe tinting the front helps darken up the rest of the tint? I think 35% is the perfect look have an appointment next friday to have my whole car done at that level. Would be nice if I only needed to do the fronts

[suspenceful]

Originally Posted by ryansbmw

Interesting. Thanks. I keep seeing people say 35% but the tint on the rear of my car looks much lighter for some reason. Maybe tinting the front helps darken up the rest of the tint? I think 35% is the perfect look have an appointment next friday to have my whole car done at that level. Would be nice if I only needed to do the fronts

I was in the same boat, it seems awfully light. If I had to guess, the factory tint is ~40%.

[boneca]

Originally Posted by suspenceful

Are you sure there is an aero-kit for the M-Sport body? I know there is a kit for the regular X5, but wasn't aware of one for an M-Sport.

Now that u mentioned this I'm not sure!

[boneca]

Originally Posted by suspenceful

It's first snowfall. Not bad at all with the Continental DWS06 all seasons. I have some Pirelli Scorpion snow tires that I'll swap on this weekend.

Looking good on the snow