How to Replace Front Strut Assembly 1997-2006 BMW 325Xi

What's up guys? I'm Andy from 1AAuto. In this video I'm going to show you how to replace the front strut assemblies in this 2001 BMW 325XI. If you need parts for your vehicle click the link in the description and head over to 1AAuto.com.

I raised the vehicle. We're using a two post lift. If you're doing this at your house you can use a jack and jack stands. I'm going to remove the tire to gain extra access. It's going to make it a little bit easier. I'm going to use a 17 millimeter socket and an air gun. You could always use a breaker bar. Take these lug nuts out or lug studs out. When I get to the last one I'm just going to hold the wheel so it doesn't fall. Take the last one out. Grab the wheel, pull it off.

I want to loosen up this nut on the link right here. I'm just going to spray some rust penetrant on the nut just to help loosen it up. I'll take a 16 millimeter socket and a ratchet and I'm going to loosen it first and them I'm going to switch to a wrench. I just turned the wheel a little bit to gain access to this nut so that I can use a 16 millimeter wrench on the nut and I'm going to hold the stud with a T27 socket and a ratchet. Check to see if a T30 fits. This one may be rusted and that's why it's a T27 but this one fits. That'll hold the stud. Okay. After awhile I was able to get the T30 on the stud. I think it was just rusted. That's why it wouldn't go on originally. Loosened up that nut. Take that off there. Take the nut off so you can slide the stud out.

We're just going to spray some rust penetrant on this bolt, it's pretty rusty. Then let it soak for a little bit and just take a 18 millimeter socket and a breaker bar. Loosen this bolt up. I'm going to switch to a ratchet or if you have an air tool you can use an air gun. Take this bolt out. Take that bolt out and there's a bracket right here we'll set that bracket aside. The brake hose goes through the bracket and the ABS wire. Set that aside. So, you want to take some kind of punch because we want to move the spindle down or the knuckle down and we're going to place it right here. And then, you can take a pretty heavy hammer. We're going to tap it down. Yeah. As you can see, the strut is staying stationary and the knuckle is going down. Okay.

At this point it's pretty loose. I can just wiggle it back and forth. Slide this down, slide this out of the way. Be careful with the driveshaft, well the front CV shaft, you don't want to have that get pulled out or anything. Slide that to the side. We'll just make sure that stays like that. It should be okay. I am going to take a bungee cord just hook onto here and hook around the lower control arm. I'm just trying to prevent this whole thing from sliding out. Just hook that there and put this over here and it should be good. Then it's not going to pop the CV boot out or anything.

Right now I'm going to take these three nuts off. I'm going to use a 13 millimeter socket and a ratchet. Be careful not to arc out your ratchet on this stud right here. There should be a cover on here. This vehicle does not have one. So, take these off. All right from underneath I'm actually going to grab the strut itself. And from on top I'll just take out this last nut and just use a gun. You can use an air gun. Loosen it up, take it out, slide it down, and slide it out.

So, with the strut I want this little tab right here facing towards the vehicle and there's this little index tab that's going to line up right there. So, slide this in from underneath just like that. Get the studs to go through. I'll take these nuts. I'm going to get these all started and you can see where you want to tighten this down where it was before. Then when you go to have an alignment done it'll be closer. It's a good idea to have an alignment done after you do this repair to make sure your tires don't get burned out going down the road. I am going to leave these two nuts a little bit loose at first because I want to slide this into position before we tighten those up. So, this little tab is going to go through that groove so spin that in the proper location, push that like that. Just wiggle that a little bit.

So, with that lined up I'm just going to take a floor jack and get underneath the control arm right under the ball joint. Actually take that off. And start pressing up on that. Make sure it goes in there correctly. Just wiggle it back and forth a little bit. So, I'm just pushing just using the floor jack. Put a little bit of pressure pushing up. Just be careful with your fingers. Don't get anything caught.

So, our strut has bottomed out on our knuckle which is good. So, I'm going to take the bolt. It's probably a good idea to get a replacement bolt for this. Make sure you take this bracket, line the bracket up, and slide the bolt in. Now, if you can't get the bolts into this position then your struts probably not all the way down or it's twisted but there is that guide pin that should line up with that channel so you should be all set.

I'm just going to take a 18 millimeter socket and a ratchet and just tighten this down first. I'm going to take my 18 millimeter socket and a torque wrench. I'm going to torque this bolt to 74 foot pounds. All right, it looks good. Now I'm to tighten these upper nuts down. Now with these nuts heightened down I'm just going to use a 12 millimeter socket and a torque wrench, I'm going to tighten these to 21 foot pounds.

Now with the strut all tightened in there, I can lower the floor jack. At this point you can remove the bungee cord. Take that off. Take the sway bar link, slide that in position. Take a 14 millimeter wrench, put it on the backside on the stud, and open that. Get the nut started. Take a 15 millimeter socket and ratchet, tighten this up. Then use the torque wrench and torque this nut to 47 foot pounds.

Now, I'm going to put the wheel on. Just line up the holes. Take one of the lug studs, get that started, and I can grab the other ones. And I'll just tighten these down and then I'm going to lower the vehicle and torque them. All right. Now I'm going to use the 17 millimeter socket and a torque wrench. I'm going to torque these lug bolts to 95 foot pounds. I'm going to torque them in a star pattern so that the wheel gets tightened down evenly. I'm just going to go around again, just double check. Good to go.

Thanks for watching. If you want the parts to do it yourself, check out 1AAuto.com the place for DIY auto repair.