I'm currently looking for an E61, and it's proving pretty difficult to find one. Right now I'm pretty much only considering m-sport cars, but I'm wondering if it would be reasonable to buy a sport package car and convert it to an m-sport.

The options sheet (https://5series.net/info/2010_5_Seri...ion_Sheets.pdf) seems to indicate the only differences between sport and m-sport are the aero kit, wheels, steering wheel (sport still has basically the same wheel though), and headliner. I don't care about the headliner, steering wheel difference, or having OEM wheels (I'll buy my own wheels). So with all that said, I guess I have two questions:

1) Are there other major things that m-sport cars come with that I didn't mention? I think there are some extra m badges as well, but I can take or leave those.
2) Does anyone have an idea of the cost to purchase m-sport bumpers + side skirts and have them painted and installed, along with aux stuff like sensors/foglights? My rough guess was $1k for the parts, and $1k-$2k for the painting and labor, but I really don't know.

Any input is greatly appreciated!

 

I'd just be happy with the sport if I were you. Unless you track it a lot. Bumper-skirt kit and painting will be thousands. I have seen front bumper paint quotes alone cost $800-1000 dollars.

 

M-sports are pretty rare especially on wagons.

differences over sport:
Exterior: front+rear bumpers, sideskirts and high gloss shadowline window trim
Interior: "M" trim bits (sill plates, steering wheel trim and dead pedal), M silver cube trim(pre-lci only), M steering wheel and the Anthracite headliner
wheels: Just a different style (style 135).
Suspension: Being x-drive; sport/m-sport got no upgrades for suspension

Lots of parts can be found used/part outs and swapped over. Bumpers are more of a pain unless you can find it in the same colour.

I also have a wagon and I've swapped over a bunch of sport/M-sport parts myself (wagons+manual are rare so I didn't get a choice) but the hardest parts to find are: the rear bumper, headliner and shadowline trims; The rest you can find from E60 m-sports as they are fairly common(especially 550s)

 

I believe high gloss glass trim was mostly reserved for the M5s. The rest could come in chrome or matte black finish.

 

Almost all M-sports I've seen are high gloss shadowline(as confirmed by the bmw ordering guide) but some were optioned with the matte finish(normally used on sport pack cars)

The other oddball is the x-drive sport package cars, i've seen many with just the steering wheel+matte shadowline, some with just the comfort seats+shadowline and others with wheel+seats and chrome.