So my friend was trying to open my trunk, and BMW trunks don't pop up when you open them by themselves, you have to pull it up. Well, he didn't know that and yanked the handle part of it and it broke some of the plastic around the screw. Now, a few days later, the plastic surrounding the screw is just totally busted. The trunk handle is lopsided/crooked and projecting from the car about 1/4", but it's not hanging there or anything. I unscrewed that screw and put a small washer there temporarily to help hold it in place, but it's not really helping much. I called the dealer and found out the part is called a "Trunk Lid Grip", and it will be $83 and $44 to get it painted to match my car. The guy said these are parts that break often, and it is honestly cheaper than I was expecting, I figured it would be like $300 or something. I can't find it online anywhere, or on EBay, and I doubt junkyards have random trashed Bimmers laying around.

Anyways, my question is, if anyone has experience with these specfically, or in general, are they that hard to put on? It looks like you just need to unscrew all the 4-5 screws holding it in place and then take out the wires for the license plate lights and reattach them to the trunk lid grip and re-screw stuff in, e.g., stuff I could probably do myself (with my dad's help for the lights) instead of paying like another $50 in labor to have it put on.

8/4/2006 2:08:13 PM

Give these guys a call: http://vinesauto.com/

8/4/2006 2:09:40 PM

Thanks for that! I called the guy and he has to go look through all their bajillion parts because it wasn't listed in the system or website.
Let's hope it's cheaper, but the shipping might even it out to be the same price, unless the color matches my car.

Like I said though - would this probably be something easy to install myself?

8/4/2006 2:30:58 PM

doesnt take a rocket scientist, as a matter of fact, i couldnt see it taking a borderline retard more than 10 minutes

8/4/2006 2:39:25 PM

^^ That's good, I didn't know if I needed some special BMW tools or anything to fix it, and I wasn't sure if the lights worked like that (just unclip and re-clip, I guess).

8/4/2006 2:41:21 PM

Yeah its held on by 4 T25 or T20 screws.........more than likely the T20's. Its really easy to put on.

8/6/2006 12:36:46 PM