[cokeith]

This post is informational only and may include opinions that you may not share. Notice to trolls: please withhold your negative comments as they only serve to discourage people from sharing their experience and opinions which may of benefit to other forum users. Helpful and encouraging comments based on actual first-hand experience are always welcome!

Background: Daily driver 2009 E92 328i, titanium silver, auto with sport, premium, and cold weather packages. I typically put over 250K miles on my BMW’s before getting a new one. As such, I typically update their appearance instead of buying a new car.

Before ordering and installing the side skirts I researched this forum, the web, and various vendors who sell the bumper.

This posting only contains notes and tips that you may find helpful when installing reproduction M3 side skirts on an E92 328i. Much of this information will be helpful to any side skirt retrofit. There are several postings on this forum that outline side skirt removal and installations as well as how to retrofit M3 side skirts. These posts contain many images that you will find very helpful so I will not repeat that information here – seek and ye shall find. Much of this information will be most helpful after you’ve read these other postings or if you are currently in the process of retrofitting.

Material Types: Polypropylene (PP) and Polyurethane (PU)
Both materials can yield a good quality product and I found the prices to be similar. Plastic components have markings indicating the type of plastic. Polypropylene can be heated and reformed/bent/adjusted which is helpful if your part is slightly out of shape. Polyurethane is not formulated to be heated and reformed/bent/adjusted. My PP side skirts required some minor adjustments which I was able to perform using a heat gun.

Vendors and General Fitment: I bought my side skirts from a reputable, well reviewed vendor on this forum. While the quality was good, the fitment was not as good as expected and I had to modify more than expected and still the fitment wasn’t up to my exacting standards. I believe you can buy a similar lower cost PP product. Since the cost of PP molds are high and the mold quality is very good, I suspect that the same manufacturer sells to many distributors. Many members on this forum have purchased their PP parts from eBay and other sources and have had good results. A reputable manufacturer/vendor may still deliver sub-par parts depending on the level of quality control. The same mold may yield different results if the recipe (plastic mix, time, temp.) is not followed precisely. Research your vendor of choice carefully – buyer beware. I bought from a reputable vendor on this forum and while some feedback and images showed a perfect fit, my fitment was not even close to that prior feedback.

Specific Fitment Notes/Issues:

- Take pictures of your current OEM fitment to use a reference. While the reproduction parts don’t fit as well as OEM parts, you can get them to fit quite well. If you are very picky, you will notice gaps that seem to be too large but when you look at your OEM pictures it becomes apparent that they are not.

- Test fit before sending your side skirts to the paint shop! You will be installing and removing the side skirts to address various fitment issues. This way you won’t have to worry about scratching you newly painted parts. Local (Denver) painting estimates I received (for painting the front bumper and M3 side skirts) ranged from $600 to $900 - $800 was the mean estimate.

- The ends of the skirts by the rear wheel wells curved inwards. I used a heat gun to bend them into their proper position.

- The skirts bowed out near the junction of the front fender and the door. Remove the fender mounting bolt nearest the door.

- The skirts were not flush to the bottom of the doors. There is a forum post that addresses this. Read that forum and then read my notes. The overall solution is to pull the skirt away from the car until it is flush with the door. This can be achieved in two ways and it’s best to use both methods together. 1) Elongate the mounting holes in the skirts where they attach to the bottom of the car. Only elongate those holes that need it. Do not elongate them too much or the plastic bolts may not be able to hold the skirt. 2) Making new mounting holes under the sill plate for the top of the skirts – refer to forum on this. There is a lot of tension on the skirt when pulling it out from the car to make it flush with the door. After several measurements, I drilled a small hole and added a screw to hold the skirt in place. Now that the skirt was flush with the door, I drilled the new mounting holes.

- The skirts protruded from the rear of the door to the rear wheel well along the top of the skirt. In other words, they were not flush with the body of the car. The solution was to modify the four plastic mounting clips used in this area. The clips "plug" into the green body receptacles. The side of the clip that plugs into the body has a raised ridge on either side of the plug. Remove these raised ridges and either install new green body receptacles or rotate the existing ones 90 degrees. (Rotating is easier. Rationale: the receptacles have memory (deformed) based on how deep the clips were previously inserted. New or rotated receptacles will insure a tight fit.) The skirt will now fit closer to the body of the car.