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.