My Latvian-sourced bumper arrived today. Some initial observations:
1. It's PP, not ABS as I thought it would be, stamped Made in Taiwan.
2. The bumper was well packaged and undamaged in transit. All accessories - fogs, bulbs, mesh and rub strips - are present.
3. The holes for the washer-nozzle cut-outs are neat and cleanly cut. So clean in fact I wonder if the bumper came like this from the factory.
4. I had the seller pre-paint the bumper in 668 Jet Black. Finish looks excellent. No complaints here. Very good paint job as far as I can see.
I am excited to put it on the car, but rain is forecast for the whole day and I'm busy tomorrow. So most likely it will have to wait until the weekend. Since the bumper is not OEM, I am expecting some fitment issues at the fender edge but I will keep my fingers crossed and see what I can do.
For $364 shipped (cheaper than Umnitza, even for their PP option) I'm very happy so far.
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Last edited by cpf9; 03-21-2019 at 02:26 PM.
Bumper looks good and shipped in a real box too, nice.
You did in fact get a phenomenal deal.
I wanted to let you know a few things you probably aren't familiar with.
The company that makes this bumper - if it's made in taiwan - made a bunch with the headlight washer holes in them precut. I don't remember if they were in the correct place or not, but they were correctly sized as you have noted.
They couldn't give them away to any of the regular vendors who import them, so you definitely got a great deal when you found the vendor that took them at 1/3rd the wholesale price (probably at cost). There were about 50-100 of them made, we didn't get a final number from them but we declined to buy that many - it was an all or nothing deal.
The reason I'm writing this to you is that I don't want people to think that somehow we're gouging people on the prices on the parts. We pay a set wholesale price for them and mark up appropriately.
Our painter does charge $250 for paint, he uses PPG paint. By initial visual you have good paint on yours - though I did notice some imperfections on your photos (NBD).
Hopefully your paint holds up over time.
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Here's the breakdown of the price I paid:
Bumper + Mesh: 95
Fogs/bulbs: 40
Paint: 150
Shipping: 79
Total: $364.00
The same package is still available on eBay, though I think it has gone up in price very slightly to $379 total. Seller is called protuninglv. I understand that only time will tell whether the paint holds up. But at the moment, I think it was totally worth it and I would buy from them again.
It's not for me to say whether you are gouging people on prices. Others can make up their mind about that. I do think it is unconscionable that you let that massacred bumper ship out. That is poor quality control. I'm glad to hear you are making the customer whole again.
Ive bought stuff from that dude before, hes awesome! One the things I got from him was a set of M5 fog lights because I was dumb enough to give my brother my brand new oem ones, talk about a brainfart and a half. The fogs were stupid cheap, figured Id give them a try. Still in the box, let me know how they are.
Set the controls for the heart of the sun
I do not believe in a risk free society where the thrill of living is traded for the safety of existence. Nick Ienatsch
The law does NOT determine "right" from "wrong". They are unrelated.
If you put cheap parts on your car, you will soon have a cheap parts car.
Ok heres the update with OEMs, the first 3 of photos(with black euro plate) is the aftermarket bumper along with side fender shots.
I know the picture may not do justice but the aftermarkers are about an inch short on both sides making the wheel arch looking absurd and irritating.
I also took photos of bumper next to each other. Pic#4
total cost so far $1017.76 bumper + Paint $250 = $1267.76
OEM bumper pic#5-7
Overall the fitment is well.. OEM, it fits perfectly, both sides hug the headlight seals underneath pretty well compare to the aftermarket.
The wheel arch gap is soooo much better compare to the aftermarket.
The bumper itself is alot more sturdy but flexible.
The next step is to put 3M clear bra next week
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Last edited by slowthirtynine; 03-22-2019 at 12:18 AM.
Latvian bumper went on today. It's not perfect, but for the price I am very happy.
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I re-used the plastic rivets from the old bumper assembly when transferring the reinforcement bar over. It would have been easier to just buy a bag of new rivets instead. The mesh for the lower grill is pretty cheap and not very sturdy. It is mostly held in place by the tensile strength added by the insertion of the reinforcement bar. First time around I put the bar in first, then tried to snap the mesh on. This didn't work - it just wouldn't fit properly. I took the bar back out, put the mesh on, then reinserted the bar and it seemed ok.
There is a slight gap where the bumper meets the fender. I fully expected this since all non-OEM bumpers seem to be a little short. It's really not as bad as I was expecting and I can certainly live with it. It helps that the car is black - it somewhat hides it. I also wonder whether I could have aligned it better if I had help. I did the install on my own, but could imagine that if I had someone aligning the bumper while I screwed in the big Torx bolts, we may have been able to massage it further back.
The paint match is spot on for the car. Whether the paint holds up over time is anybody's guess but it looks fine for the time being. It's not a fancy paint job - there are some minor imperfections - but you can't argue for the price.
I am a dummy and I dropped one of the fogs during installation, causing the glass to crack. Installed anyway. Both fogs work fine. Since they are the same aftermarket fogs widely available for cheap on eBay, I will probably buy a replacement soon. Also, while I was futzing around installing the reinforcement bar, I scratched the paint on the bumper on one side near where it meets the fender. Not a big deal.
To attach the front license plate I bought a Skene bracket. The advantage is that the mount holes are located under the edge of the bumper so that the bracket can be removed in future leaving the front fascia unaffected. Works well.
It looks great! Should spend on a clear 3M bra for it. Definitely worth it when you drive alot. And even with two people helping you mount it will still come up short. I had my aftermarket and OEM side by side and the bumper length difference was huge..
Could you post a pic of that License plate holder you are talking about. I have the Euro plate holder and I'm thinking if there anything out there besides plate holders on the tow hook
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Thanks!
This short installation video from Skene's website will show you how the bracket works:
https://skenebrackets.com/pages/installation
The bracket costs $49.99, ordered directly from the Skene website. Worth every penny in my view.
I do not believe in a risk free society where the thrill of living is traded for the safety of existence. Nick Ienatsch
The law does NOT determine "right" from "wrong". They are unrelated.
If you put cheap parts on your car, you will soon have a cheap parts car.
Nice result there from Protuning. I have the same //M-schnoz, and have had it since their early days (2014). Only replacing it now because I'm planning to convert back to the standard pre-FL bumper cover.
On an unrelated note, be skeptical of their other aero, as it is hit or miss. They do some ooogly replicas of the original Zender skirts (which are NLA, over here), but the Hamann front apron they supply is impossibly better than the original I have in storage.
I am still planning to do the rear bumper (in fact I just bought the MagnaFlow muffler I mentioned). But I'm having trouble deciding between two different ways of going about it:
Option 1: Order the rear bumper from the Latvian seller. This will come to about $530 shipped and painted. If past experience is a guide, it takes about 6-7 weeks from order to delivery.
Option 2: Ikon Motorsports is a reseller of the PP replica rear bumper. They have it listed on Amazon for $295 shipped. As luck would have it, I have $300 in Amazon gift cards that I got for reward points on my credit card. I might just use them to buy the bumper and then take it to my local Maaco for a paint job. I know Maaco is not highly regarded, but the franchise structure means some locations are much better than others. The one near me is highly rated.
Option 2 will save me a bit of money, I think. But I'm running the risk with fitment. Not sure what to do yet.
Also, I bought these aftermarket fender splash guards ("pork chops") to complete the front installation of the front bumper:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/BMW-E39-M5-...frcectupt=true
They are not OEM quality but I am happy now they are on.
Last edited by cpf9; 03-30-2019 at 06:52 PM.
Please do post here which ever option you choose because Im debating whether if I should go get the rear m bumper or not, and today Ive installed black shadow trim pulled out from the junkyard $20. And btw when you get that muffler install post it. I wanna hear, will you delete the resonator?
On the subject of fender splash shield mines has the air cutout to the brakes. though the issue is securing it. I fixed mines by using zip tie lol. So I think im all good on that.
here are some pics of the ride.
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Your car looks great! I especially like the contrast between the black rub strips and the silver paint. Looks excellent. And the rear end with the exhaust cut out looks very tidy. I was thinking of mounting my new muffler and doing the same too, but ultimately I decided to just wait until I get the Mtech rear bumper to put it on.
Did you delete any resonators? To be honest, my plan was just to change the muffler and leave it at that (mainly for aesthetic purposes) but now I'm wondering if I should do more work as well to increase the sound. I just don't want it to drone!
It will have the drone if you get rid of the resonator.
Set the controls for the heart of the sun
Thank you very much for the compliment, Ive deleted the muffler but kept the resonator. It has a... well an ok growl and very very subtle, dont expect it to be near awesome as the 540s and you wont be dissapointed but besides taking that muffler off is a nice weight reduction, also took out my spare tire. I always check my tires every time I leave in case there are any issues just so I could prevent myself a bigger problem down the road. And and if you want super cheap parts try the local junk yard, just dont get engine parts thats made of rubber lol.
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Here is an update on the bumper cover situation: Umnitza offered to ship my cover back to them so they could repair and repaint it.
Due to my own time limitations I wasn't able to do that in a reasonable amount of time since it would take the car off the road (the old cover was too damaged to want to put it back on).
In the mean time, I purchased another identical car. https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/s...er-2003-540i-6
So what we agreed was I would keep the cover (and install it on my new to me project car) and they would send me another cover at a substantially reduced price.
This will allow me to see if the fitment issues are something unique to my car, the cover itself, or installation errors.
I'll keep you posted. I am happy with the effort Umnitza is putting forth to make things right.
I do not believe in a risk free society where the thrill of living is traded for the safety of existence. Nick Ienatsch
The law does NOT determine "right" from "wrong". They are unrelated.
If you put cheap parts on your car, you will soon have a cheap parts car.
Thats great news and congrats on that new 540, It looks awesome! Id definitely buy one but.... I can only afford my 530 for nw lol. Anyway reduced price? That bumper better be 99.9% because if we are keeping in touch with numbers you are now at the OEM price(without paint) unless.....that reduced price is somewhere is $200 less
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Man, I'm glad that you're happy with that but I'd be livid. Reduced price better be 99.9% like slowthirtynine said. It's pretty sad that they've basically been shown up in this thread by their own bad work, bad business practices, and other's vastly better experience with a Lithuanian ebay seller. It's even more hilarious that they tried to neg cpf9's bumper too saying things like at the top of this page. I decided to never buy anything from them again when they sent me complete crap ballasts with my OE hella headlights for an additional $150 on top of the $1300 price tag already. Those ballasts both failed within 18 months. I can't believe they actually wanted you to send that cover back for "repair". There's no way to repair that, the material is just gone and there's no way that you could fill it to ever make it look correct. The nonsense about "the painter accidently did it upside down" or whatever is even more laughable, as if it's the orientation, not the fact that it looks like it was done by a methed out gorilla that was so off-putting.
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