Today, we finally succeeded in installing new black grills on our M235i.
After reading numerous posts on how easy is it and posts saying things like "It took me 5 minutes!" my wife and I were starting to get a complex.
So this post is for those that aren't mechanically inclined.
It took three different sessions before the first grill finally came off. The first two were about 20 - 30 minute episodes struggling with a assortment of tools, dentist mirrors and picks and and more than one mental back and forth on whether I could squeeze my entire hand and wrist in between one of the slats.
The smart angel on my shoulder and the idea of the fire department cutting my grill to get my hand out stopped me from going in that direction.
Things I learned:
1. If you plan on sticking tools between the grills, tape some twine to the end of the tool. If you drop it, it goes right down to the bottom lattice and you will be sad. I dropped a folding hand mirror down there and somehow managed to fish a some twine down through the grill and tie it and pull it back up. This was not much fun.
2. For the removal, I ended up spending about $8.00 on the radiator hose puller. Really study your new grill. You can see where the pointy part of the puller needs to go. After a few tries you can tell when its properly in place.
3. I started on the right side facing the car and the upper right tab. I did this all by feel, as I could not see anything in there with or without the dental mirror.
4. You'll know right away when the tab is depressed as the grill will only slightly start to come out. Make sure you don't let go and let it click back into place.
5. Once it comes out a bit, use a trim tool or something similar and wedge that in between the grill and the bumper.
6. I then went to the middle top tab. Using the same technique, I was able to depress the tab, pull and little more and move the trim tool to the middle.
7. for the last tab, instead of depressing the tab with the radiator hose puller head on, I came from one slat to the right. (middle). For some reason, it was really easy and with the pressure applied by the trim tool, the grill moved forward even more.
8. At this point I was able to use my hand for the rest of the tabs and remove the grill entirely.
9. I'm sure you've read this in other posts. *Before* you put the new grill in, stick your arm in there and remove the second grill with ease.
Well, that was long, but I hope this helps someone else. Good luck and I'm adding posts of the tools and a video showing installation success.
Moke
