Hi All I would have thought this had been covered but I could not find it bar replacements. My F80 has very black / carboned tips. Obviously the previous owner did not care but I has seen a number of M3's and M4's with lovely shinning pipes. Just wondering if there is a way to restore mine. I know some don't care but the car is my pride / joy and took me a lot of hard work to buy it. Any pointers would be greatly appreciated, my wife says use some Mr Muscle!!! Thanks
Hello there. On my previous car, F32 440i, the original chrome tips showed one side as very dirty and one not so. This was due to the valved exhaust generally only using the one side. It annoyed me a lot, so I cleaned the exhaust tips to get them both to look the same. Once I’d done this I modded the valve to keep it permanently open. Eventually I changed the chrome tips to chrome black. For cleaning I used Autosol metal polish and very fine wire wool. Took them off and washed with alloy wheel cleaner, then the wire wool/Autosol followed by a micro fibre cloth and Autosol. Not perfect, but a damn sight better than before:
Many thanks, but I think we are talking Accrington Stanley vs Brazil here, mine are proper black carboned. A side question, are they easy to take off? I have a F80 M3 Comp 2017?
Might be useless info but. My sister has an Aga stove and the top gets really burned on. She tried all sorts of stuff but no good but then she found Aga cleaner took the black stuff off so easy. I think it is for carbon well burned on could be worth a try.
The right had side of mine was black, pitted and looked ruined. Using the process described above did work. The tips are push fit, so can be knocked off using a piece of wood and a rubber mallet, this is how I took them off my F32. YT clip:
I wouldn't use any acidic chemicals on chrome it may permanently damage it. Fine steel wool (0000) won't damage chrome but it will take exhaust tips that don't even look chrome back to shiny with some elbow grease.
Thanks all I used fine wire wool today and took me about an hour. However, they are shinny black. Did the F80 come with the option of black or chrome? My M3 badge on the boot is black and seen some F80s with silver.
There are genuine BMW chrome black tips available, and I’ve certainly seen a few F80/82 cars with them on.
