Next up – some parts that were showing some wear or malfunction. Typically exterior body parts (mouldings), side turn signals, trunk lid switch and door seals on the vehicle body. All of those had lasted for 18 years and while nothing was really broken or ugly, the best times were clearly over. The door seals had wrinkles and small cracks on the rubber, turn signals seemed okay but one of them was obviously not water resistant, showing some water dirt and dust inside. Trunk lid switch was just a mess because the rubber had decided to give up and disintegrate. Plus, the license plate lamps. The time has then come to solve these.

The side mouldings are just a visual part (maybe they do some protection against door scratches though). One complete side moulding is based on three different plastic strips – from the front fender, through front doors to rear doors. On each side of the car. Of course, the ///M5 sign is present.

The edge protectors for entry trim is just a black piece of plastic, which covers the inner trim and also works as a lock for the door seals. Although not really visually critical part, it’s one of the ingredients defining the M5 experience.

Turn signals are just turn signals. Trunk lid switch and license plate lamps.. no explanation needed.

The seals on the other hand, those are important as they prevent water from getting inside the vehicle plus the inner part covers all gaps with the interior trim. The outer part is obviously rubber, the inner is black “velvet” like feel. The interesting part is the packaging – each door seal comes is crazy big box.

I’ve spent nearly 2 hours replacing the parts, with the seals being the worst work yet. Removing the seals is easy and takes about 30 seconds. However to install a new seal, so that both ends come together just right, that’s a painful stuff. You need to push and squeeze the seal into the place, ie. to get more rubber per centimeter, because the seal is actually longer than the hole itself. If you fail to do this, you’ll end up with some seal either remaining or missing.

Trunk lid switch needed a  partial trunk trim removal, which I didn’t expect. And another small problem came into play while I was changing the edge protectors in the rear. Obviously, not everything is available on the internet as a DIY guide. On that however, later on, in my DIY post.

In the end I managed to replace everything , despite my lack of knowledge and experience. That lead to significant amount of joy for me and even the car. At least that’s what I imagine.