Nothing much has been reported over the last couple of weeks and that’s a good thing. I’ve not used the car a huge amount – probably only done 100 miles in that time, but they’ve all been good, balls out, V8 barking, smile inducing miles.

So far then, so good. Also – see how forward thinking I was buying a 5 litre car just before they made fuel so cheap. May as well use it while it lasts!

The super saloon appeared for the first time in BMW Car Magazine today. It’ll be featuring regularly there as part of their long term fleet. Of course, if you read this blog you’ll already be ahead of the M5 news, but there’s loads of other great content within that magazine’s pages, including another M5 in the long term fleet, so grab yourself a copy!

The M5′s stable mate, a 330d, is also featured in the magazine’s long termer section. Historical entries can be found here – I’m still bringing them up to date but plan to add to them once a week or so until I’ve caught up.

Having managed a 10km run in just over 50 minutes this morning, I had planned to lard around the house for the afternoon. However, the weather was just too good to ignore, so I decided to go and play with the cars for the afternoon.

I’ve decided that the badge on the back of the M5 is just a bit vulgar. Before taking any action though, I thought it would be a good time to take a look under the M5 and see if anything looked out of place.

First of all, did you know that each of the tail pipes on the E39 M5 has its own separate back box?!

Lovely big cooling fin on the differential. A little blackening on a branch of the exhaust but it looked old.

Moving further forward I can’t see any joins on the exhaust. I’d only lifted the rear of the car and so couldn’t get right to the front, so I’d be interested to know where the exhaust is split when it is removed for prop-shaft maintenance.

Going back to this badge situation then:

Some hot soapy water, a hair-dryer, some dental floss, some white spirit, a wash and a polish and the rear of the car now looks like this:

I’m much happier without the badge there. Now I just need to evaluate the merits of removing the ‘W4OOM’ plate and returning it to something less obnoxious.

A pair of black kidney grilles arrived during the week as a result of an eBay transaction, so today I chose to clean the car and fit them. I’m not really a fan of large lumps of chrome on the front of an otherwise discreet vehicle, and as such the tractor has sported black kidney grilles for a couple of years:

Not everyone’s cup of tea I know, but I prefer it. Still, back to the M5, which was still covered in grime and roadkill from its Cornish adventure of a fortnight ago.

After a wash it was grille fitting time. I’ve heard people complain about black grilles, saying that it looks as if there’s a bit of the car missing. Well, here’s what it looks like when there actually is a bit of the car missing!

And this is what it looks like when there’s a black grille in situ. Also, a good comparison with the standard affair.

There’s clearly a difference! However, I can see the argument, and the way that the grilles come apart gave me an idea. I’m trying to avoid the great slab of chrome effect of the originals, but I quite like the front of the slats being chrome. As the grilles come apart into two pieces I made up a grille consisting of black outer but chrome inner – shown below compared to a full black unit.

I really liked that effect! Shows there’s something there, but a bit more stealthy. I therefore converted the other side:

I’m really happy with that effect. So, facelift complete and stealth grilles fitted, here’s a couple of obligatory ‘side-lights on’ shots of the car – I think it’s really smart!

Now this leaves only one question: to debadge, or not to debadge. Hmm!