How to Replace Front Lower Ball Joints 2003-10 BMW X3

You want to keep in mind when you're doing this job, after you're done, you're going to want to go to a local garage and have the vehicle aligned so you don't have premature tire wear. I'm gonna take the wheel off. Use a 17-millimeter socket. Take these lug studs off. So, I'm going to hold the wheel on, take that stud off and then grab the wheel. Take it off.

We're going to take the shield off. There's all these screws all along here. They're 8-millimeter. There should be one there, one there, and then the same on the other side. Use an 8-millimeter socket. Take all these out. All right, and then just pull this down, slide it back. Take these two out as well. Slide this panel out of the way, just like that. Be careful with the wire for the ambient air temp sensor. If you have to, you can disconnect it, and we want to get that nut off right there, that bolt, and use a 10-millimeter socket. The point of taking this panel off is just to gain access to this bolt, so if you wanted to, you could just leave that in that location, or you can take this nut off over here. Just use a 10-millimeter socket. You can just slide it out of the way. Gives you a little bit more room. I'm going to take this nut off right here. Use a 22-millimeter socket. This should prevent this from popping off, I'm just going to put the nut back on just a couple threads. I'm going to put a 21-millimeter wrench on the nut side right there. Can use a 21-millimeter socket over here and take the bolt out. The bolt out. Now, you could try to use a pickle fork if you have one that's small enough. You just have to be careful not to hit the other ball joint, or I can just take a hammer and give it a tap, and get it separate from the ball joint, and you can take the nut back off. Pull the arm right off. Now, you can take this ball joint out without taking this lower arm off. It's just a lot easier if you pull it off, then it's not going to be in your way. We're doing it for the video. There's two bolts I need to take off. I'm going to use an E12 socket. Take that one off and take the inboard one off. You might have to use a wobble extension to get the inboard one off, or even a swivel. There we go. Most of the time, if this isn't too rusty, you can take a chisel and a hammer and just try to separate this.

All right, so ours is really frozen in there, so we're actually going to take the axle out, and then we'll be able to press it down at a better angle. Right now, this isn't going to work for us, and if we do anything more, we're probably going to rip the boot, which isn't good. So, we're going to end up taking the tie rod off, this other lower ball joint and take the axle nut off, and just slide the axle out of the way. I'm going to take this axle nut off. I'm going to use a chisel and just bend these tabs back over so that I can loosen up the nut. I'm going to use a 36-millimeter 12-point socket. Remove the nut. Then I'll just take a punch so I don't mess up the threads. Just give the axle a tap. Try to break it free from the hub. You don't have to press it completely out, just get it loose. I'll use a 22-millimeter socket to take off the outer tie rod end. Take that nut off. And this tie rod end is loose enough to just pull it out. You can always take a hammer and give it a tap. Just don't mess up the threads. You could always put the nut on first and tap on the nut. [inaudible 00:04:42] take this bolt out. I'm going to use a 16-millimeter wrench and a 18-millimeter socket. Take that nut off first, and you can take the bolt out. I can just swing that lower control arm down. So taking the control arm off right here, then I don't have to disconnect this ball joint. So, I don't have to do that. I can just swing this out. I'm just going to give the axle a tap. There we go. Just slide the axle out. All right. So, now I can press it out...this...at this angle. Just going to make it a little bit easier. There we go. Starting to move. There it is. It's all about the angle.

All right. Just going to take a wire brush and just clean this out. The new ball joint, just going to put a little anti-seize on here so if I ever have to do this again, won't get stuck in there like the old one was. That's good. And then there is a tab right here. That's going to go...you're going to have that one go away from the other ball joint because if you turn it around, it's not going to fit in there properly. Get that lined up. Take the two bolts. Just get these started. All right. Try to tighten these evenly so that it doesn't go in there crooked, and if you see that it starts struggling to the point where it's almost bending the ears, you can take a punch and tap it up. If you had a socket that was big enough to fit over the boot, that would be ideal. Use a socket and just hammer it up there. All right. Now that's all the way down, now I'm going to torque those to 59 foot-pounds. All right. Now, I'm going to put a little anti-seize on the axle itself, just in case this ever has to come out again, and then line the axle up with the knuckle, slide that in position. Now, we can line this arm up. Put that bolt back in there. I'm going to put the axle nut back on. Now, tighten this up. Now, you're going to have to torque this nut to 310 foot-pounds. So, that's going to be kind of hard to do, but do the best you can. And get this nut started. We're going to torque that nut and bolt after we get everything back together, and we can put the vehicle weight on the suspension so that the bushing is torqued down properly.

Now, install the tie rod end. Get this lined up. Put the nut on. Now, I'll take a 22-millimeter wrench and a 7-millimeter hex bit and just tighten this nut right here. Once I get it snugged up then I should be able to use a torque wrench. Now, I'll torque this nut to 59 foot-pounds. All right. Take this control arm, take the bolt, and slide that in position right there, just like that. Take the nut, get that started. All right. Holding this up, you can take a 6-millimeter hex bit. Just move the stud around a little bit. Oops. And get the nut on. Get that started. Use a 22-millimeter wrench. Tighten the nut up. If the stud starts spinning, you can use that 6-millimeter hex bit to hold the stud from spinning. All right. Make sure that's good and tight.

All right. So, there's many different ways that you can torque this nut to prevent the hub from spinning. What I'm going to do is take a little pry bar here and just rest it right up against the bracket for the brake caliper and then just do the best I can, 310 foot-pounds. Just be careful. It's a lot of torque. All right. I'm going to put a pole jack underneath the suspension to raise it up so that it's at ride level so that I can torque these bolts. I'm going to use a wrench on the inside, torque this bolt to 74 foot-pounds, and then I'm going to go an additional 90 degrees. So, if you have a torque angle meter, and you can get it up in there then do that. If not, just do the best you can. All right, that's 90 degrees. We'll torque this bolt to 74 foot-pounds and an additional 90 degrees. If you have a torque angle meter, you're going to want to use that if you can fit it in there. If not, then just do the best you can. Now I can lower the screw jack.

All right. Take this panel, slide this in position. I'm going to slide it over this stud right here and then take this plastic nut. Get that started. That goes right there, and then this bolt goes right there. All right. Now, I'll tighten this up, gently tighten this nut up. It is plastic, so be careful. That's good. Line this up. If that ambient air sensor popped out, pop that back in. Good. Get these bolts started and those up. Now, reinstall this panel. Just get it lined up. That's good. Take all the bolts and get those all started first. Now, I'll just go around and tighten them all down. So that the nut doesn't loosen up, there's these little tabs, what you need to do is just take a punch and you just need to peen over the nut, just like this. Just like that. Just fold it over a little bit, and then same on this side. Take the wheel. Put the wheel back on. Get the lug stud. Now, I'm just going to torque these lug bolts to 110 foot-pounds. I'm going to do it in a star pattern so that it tightens the wheel down evenly, and just go around again, double-check.