How to Replace Rear Lower Control Arm 2004-13 Mazda 3

Hey friends, it's Lenny here at 1A Auto. Today we're working on our 2011 Mazda 3, and I'm going to be replacing the left rear locating control arm. It's going to be a very easy job, and I want to show you how to do it. If you need this or any other part, you can always check us out at 1aauto.com. Thanks.

Okay friends, so here we are. We've got the vehicle partially supported off the ground, but the wheels still touching so it can't spin. We're going to use our 21 millimeter socket and we're going to loosen up all of these lug nuts, okay? Just give them a crank or two. This is just to break them free in case you're not using an air gun to do this job. If you are, well, you don't really have to worry about doing this part. Now that all five of these are loosened, we can go ahead up with the vehicle. We'll make sure that it's secured safely so it can't shake around or fall off or anything like that. We'll move ahead to the next step.

All right, so now we're going to go ahead and fully remove these lug nuts. I'm going to take off three of them. The fourth one, I'm going to take all the way off, put it back on a few threads and then I'll remove the last one. There we are. Just going to put this one on a few threads, like I said. That's just going to help keep this wheel from falling off and potentially hurting me while I put all this stuff away. Hold the wheel. Got our lug nuts. I'll slide this out of the way. Onto the next step.

Okay, so one of the first things we want to do is just kind of bring it up and do a quick comparison of them side by side just to make sure we're dealing with the same piece. As you can tell, we are. We've got our mounting hole, mounting hole, same shape. Kind of looks like a dog bone. I guess you could call it that if you wanted to. We'll set this aside and we'll get to work. To start. I'm going to take out a 17 millimeter headed bolt here and I'm going to come over here and do the same to this one. I'm going to use my air gun, but you can use whatever you have to use to get it done. Just make sure you're safe. Safety glasses, hand protection, 17 millimeter.

That's the first bolt. I'm just going to put it through there. Come up here now. Okay. So that one's still a little stuck in there. We'll get out in a second. That's the first one. Set this aside. To pop this out of here, I'm just going to go right in between the dog bone or control arm. Go right in like this. Just bring it down. Our bolt comes out nice and easy now. Here we go. Let's move ahead to the next step.

Here we are, friends, a quick product comparison for you. Over here we have the rearward locating arm out of our 2011 Mazda 3, and over here we have our brand new quality 1A Auto part. These two parts are the exact same shape. Okay? You get the same length, same mounting holes, even the same overall shape. There really isn't much more to say about this. So with all that said, I don't see any reason why I wouldn't want to install this into the vehicle. So I'm going to go ahead and do it. If you need this or any other part, you can always check us out at 1aauto.com. Thanks.

Okay, so now it's time to install this. You've got the opened up or hallowed area. That goes towards the rear of the vehicle. The forward side is the nice, smooth, bumped out area. I'm just going to bring it in. We're going to start our upper bolt in. Here we are. A few good threads. Now when we go to install this, you're going to notice that you got to do a little bit of maneuvering here to get it up and into where it's going to go. Okay? We're going to have to probably give this a couple bonks with the hammer, maybe give this a little tug with a ratchet strap or something, whatever you've got to do to make it so it sits in there. It's not going to want to line up perfectly right off the bat unless of course it was on the ground, and at that point, the weight of the vehicle would probably get it shipped into where it needs to be.

So I'm just going to grab a rubber mallet. I'm going to give it a couple of loving bonks, and if that doesn't work, I'll grab a strap and we'll see if we can get this hole lined up with that hole, get our bolt back through there. Okay? You can try to use a punch if you want it to. See if you can get it maneuvered to where it needs to go. Use whatever you've got to make it happen. Okay. Looks like it's pretty close. See if I can get my bolt in and start it. Here we are. Grab our 17. I want to see if I can start those through, get that threaded in. Okay. That's bottomed out here. Here we are. Now I'm just going to get a little bit extra, nice and tight. Do this one. Okay. Bottomed up, tight. Two bolts are tight. Here we are.

Okay. So now it's time to get the wheel up onto the vehicle. Instead of going in front of it and trying to lift and potentially hurting our back, you just come around the side of it, roll it right up your leg, and use your ab muscles to lift it up. Here we are. Hold your wheel, make sure it can't go anywhere. Okay. Our next step is going to be to bottom these out and then we'll bring it down completely and torque them down.

Okay, so now that we have all the lug nuts started on here, what am going to do is I'm just going to bottom them out. When I go to bottom them out, what I'm going to do is I'm going to go in a star pattern. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Okay? Basically, crisscross pattern, and that's to ensure I'm not going to go around in a circle this way, the wheel is not going to get kicked on just like this and I think everything's nice and tight. You can drive it down the road, the wheel's going like this, next thing you know, you're breaking studs, your wheel comes off. God knows what could happen. Let's avoid that. Let's go crisscross, star pattern.

Okay. I'm not making them very tight. I just wanted to bottom them out. Now I'm going to go ahead and torque them down. Okay, so here we go. We're going to go ahead and torque these down. We're going to make the same star pattern in a crisscross manner. Okay? 21 millimeter, 85 foot pounds. I could have probably brought it down another inch. Okay. Just to be sure we torqued them all, let's just hit them again. Cool. Easy peasy.

Thanks for watching. Visit 1aauto.com, your place for DIY auto repairs for great parts, great service, and more content.