At the title suggests, does the M5 front bumper offer anything more than a Fog light less cosmetic difference to the Mtec sports front bumper I already have ?? or are other things different like the cooling or size of the aero corner splitters for example ?

I like my fog lights, but I could be convinced to lose them for the right reasons..........

Also, when fitting an M5 bumper on a non-M5 e60...there is a slight gap/fit issue at the fenders due to the wider fenders on the M5....

Other then the obvious looks, the reason the M5 bumper has no fog lights is because there is additional plastic ducting that routes to the front brakes for cooling. I am not sure how many additional parts you would need to route to your brakes if you decided to do an M5 front, but I am sure others will know.

Sorry but I like the looks of the M-tech with fog lights better then without.

the M5 one is cosmetically nicer... at least to me... wider devil eyebrows.

I have the same colour and kit and it looks great, I considered the M5 front but there is hardly any difference, I owuld like it if BMW flattened the fron fogs like the old E46 sport did as these bulbous ones look silly, I would spend the money on decent 172 wheels instead and sell the old ones to fund them I did and it transformed the car, changing to an M5 front would not make much difference IMO.

here's a picture of mine, as you can see you can barely tell that the gap is there. to the left is member my530i, who also got his done

Attachment 68860

Naaa... solvable with a good fitting, as my bodyshop did.

Edit:
http://forums.e60.net/index.php?showtopic=62027

M5 bumper is nicer, bigger holes, bigger grill etc. Fogs are useless.

Let's be honest, the M5 & M Sport bumpers are very similar at a glance, with the only immediate obvious difference being the Fog Lights. The additional cooling offered by the M5 will not remotely come into play on a normal road journey.

For me, the Fog Lights are a very good additional light source as I live on the very edge of the countryside and often find myself driving on 'B' & 'C' roads in the hours of darkness. My Fog Lights, with upgraded bulbs offer a welcomed increase to my visibility. Having said that, my car is not fitted with Xenons, which may account for this.

Just my thoughts..... either way, both M5 & M Sport fronts look great IMHO.

The main reason I asked was about the cooling, simply because I have a bad habbit of killing brake discs / pads, I will be visiting the schleife this year with some old E46 chums ( and any E60 guys who fancy a 5 day road trip around some spectacular bits of europe :) ), so yer, the cooling bit is quite relevant to me for sure, just wondering if I could live without me fog lights tho, like you I only have Halogens sadly.

In these circumstances, and indeed in any serious track day use, then any extra cooling is a good thing. However, at the point the standard brakes are being cooked to an extreme level, the little extra cooling offered by the M5 bumper will surely make little real difference, especially if high overall speeds aren't involved e.g. on twisty, winding roads etc. without longer straights! I would think it is far more effective to upgrade the brakes themselves first as this would offer more of an improvement? Upgraded disc's & pad's! This is born by the fact I have read many posts where M5 owners want to upgrade their brakes, even though they have the extra cooling - although the M5 guy's obviously have tonnes more power to require the brakes in the first place!

I wouldn't want to live without my Fogs - especially during these darker winter months!