[23109VC]

Hi all. I am lurking her on your forum. I have a 2018 M550i….love the car but handling leaves something to be desired. Rather than just buy an M5, i may add lowering springs and upgraded sway bars to my M550.

I have spoken to another M550i owner who put BASE M5 sway bars onto his M550i..fit perfectly and helped handling quite a bit. I have not found anyone who has swapped in M5 competition bars. From what I can tell via the OEM parts websites and vehicle fitment guides - it looks like the M5 base and M5 competition bars are the SAME in terms of FITMENT.

They are different part numbers - so I’m guessing the comp bar is thicker/stiffer…but interchangeable.

Given that I know M5 base bars WILL fit an M550..do any of you M5 owners swap comp bars onto a base? If so, then either will fit my car. The options on the used market are better for comp bars… I’m guessing more comp owners are upgrading to something else and selling their bars? Or there are more crashed M5 comps?? Tons of used m5 comp sway bars on ebay…less base bars.

Assuming the comp bar is stiffer, I’d probably notice a better gain in sway reduction / body control…and woudl opt for that one.

Are there aftermarket bars for F90 M5s? If so those might fit my car as well…

Thanks for any input!!

fYI - my car has 75k miles on it. I was also going to put lowering springs on it - but wondering if my shocks may be approaching end of life - and maybe I’m just playing with fire to lower it with that many miles on my adaptive dampers…. I could install all this stuff and then blow them and be buying $4000 worth of dampers and paying for the labor all over again….

Maybe I shoudl just upgrade to an M5… or M3 comp…. 🤣

[pbonsalb]

Buy the M5 — it’s more of an overall performance package. Prices are coming down for out of warranty cars.

I don’t know the answer to the swaybar question. I have some recollection of reading that the bars are the same but the rubber mounts are stiffer, but it seems that you can’t buy the mounts separately and they have a no standard contour in the bracket so you cannot just buy common aftermarket mounts.

[M5KEITH]

Lowering springs, summer tires, and sway bars I would give that a shot and think you will be happy.

Also, get racechip gts good for more HP and TQ.

Hell the new M550 is better than previous generation M5’s.

[Maverik259]

Originally Posted by 23109VC

Hi all. I am lurking her on your forum. I have a 2018 M550i….love the car but handling leaves something to be desired. Rather than just buy an M5, i may add lowering springs and upgraded sway bars to my M550.

I have spoken to another M550i owner who put BASE M5 sway bars onto his M550i..fit perfectly and helped handling quite a bit. I have not found anyone who has swapped in M5 competition bars. From what I can tell via the OEM parts websites and vehicle fitment guides - it looks like the M5 base and M5 competition bars are the SAME in terms of FITMENT.

They are different part numbers - so I’m guessing the comp bar is thicker/stiffer…but interchangeable.

Given that I know M5 base bars WILL fit an M550..do any of you M5 owners swap comp bars onto a base? If so, then either will fit my car. The options on the used market are better for comp bars… I’m guessing more comp owners are upgrading to something else and selling their bars? Or there are more crashed M5 comps?? Tons of used m5 comp sway bars on ebay…less base bars.

Assuming the comp bar is stiffer, I’d probably notice a better gain in sway reduction / body control…and woudl opt for that one.

Are there aftermarket bars for F90 M5s? If so those might fit my car as well…

Thanks for any input!!

fYI - my car has 75k miles on it. I was also going to put lowering springs on it - but wondering if my shocks may be approaching end of life - and maybe I’m just playing with fire to lower it with that many miles on my adaptive dampers…. I could install all this stuff and then blow them and be buying $4000 [...]

There’s a guy that’s down all the Comp mods do his base if I recall. Sway bars being one of them so yes they bolt up. He also did thr motor mounts. Although it was a real pita he said which to me it’s very little fruit for the effort. Unlike monoballs.