i did look into all of these options before i decided to have the warranty paintwork carried out. I found a company that did retro fit the sidesteps and they said they had to cut the rear arches and it looked pretty terrible. Aftermarket mudflaps would be the way, but our dealer got the original bmw ones in and they looked terrible. I think i would have settled for the film, but after the paintwork was done i could not have lived with the orange peel effect i had. If i had sold the car privately someone would never have believed it was painted to that extent because of stonechips. Unfortunately the M sport model is only sold in USA and UK. My dealer feels if it was sold worldwide BMW would have engineered a solution. I have to say not having side steps when skiing last year was a real problem loading up the top box. Doors wide open in the snow!.
My main upset was their stance on the issue, not aeping it was a problem, but painting it to that extent under warranty. I remember some years ago having a problem with a Ford and they replaced the car with no real issues. BMW contributed £750.00 toward my new car. That was big of them. My dealership helped a lot more with £1250.00 towards it, so i basically had £2k off a car costing me close to £53k to bring it up to the specs i had in our M sport. Still maybe the new one will do 4 mile to the gallon more! if the brochure is to be believed, kind regards, Chris.