Is this a normal bumper to bonnet gap?

[Babw]

As normal I had to take it a step further and order the clips that attach to the wings and the bumper clips into.

Anyone have an easy way to remove the old ones? I don't fancy using a dremel, tin snips etc.

Unfortunately, I have to resort to all types of tools to take these suckers out. Ended up coming out in pieces

Am I being dense or if you take the wheel off, remove some of the wheel arch fasteners, can you not just undo the clips in the back of the wing and remove the brackets this way?

[XMetal]

I did it about 10 years ago, so my memory doesn't serve me at the moment. Since I already had my bumper cover off at this point, I must have tried accessing the rear of the clip if it was possible. If you google this, you'll find that many others have tried and came to the same conclusion of the thing coming out in pieces.

[Argenta]

Everything is movable, so after 15 years most have been repainted etc and people just dont put the time&effort to align things the way BMW did.
The headlamps alone can be freely moved in ANY direction. No wonder people today may think all E86 had crazy panel gaps.

In your case, I wonder if the bonnet was off the car?
In that case a lazy mech would just put it in place and bolt it up, and the weight of it would place it at the rear end adjustment = big gap to bumper. That looks ok tho?

Also the bumper is not centered compared to the fenders/bonnet. Could be also the headlamps are skewed.

1 thing to do, loosen bolts, adjust.

[Babw]

Bumper is definitely centred but the headlamps need adjusting which is my fault as I changed the ballasts.

[Argenta]

Ah ok I measured to the bonnet, but it might be the camera angle.