NCT fail E46

ba_barabus

Anyone know how difficult/expensive it would be to replace rear coils on a 2002 318CI.

Just failed the nct as both are snapped

rebel.ranter

It's straight forward, just jack up the rear of the car, support it properly on an axle stand, remove wheen, undo the bottom shock bolt & you will be easily able to remove the spring. Make a note of the rubbers & their position, it might also be worth replacing these as they could be torn from the jagged edges of the broken spring. You should be able,to squeeze in the new spring with a little effort. A set of rear springs from the dealer will cost around €300, I think you'll get them for less than €100 at your local motor factors. Ideally you should be buying the correct spring rating for the type of car, engine size, what options are fitted, etc. the BMW parts catalogue has a "Spring Table" which the parts guy selects all the options fitted to your car such as air con, electric seats. The parts system then spits out a part number for a spring with the correct spring rating. Your motor factor will just supply two to three options, normal & a sporty options.
This is a common failing on the e46 & the e36.

pa990

http://realoem.com/bmw/

rebel.ranter

pa990 wrote: »

http://realoem.com/bmw/

You won't actually find the springs on Realoem (or bmwfans.info) this is because of the "Spring Table" area of the real BMW ETK system. Here is a screen shot of the Spring table that your dealer will access:





To be honest if you've been driving around with two broken rear springs & you isn't notice any replacements, even 2nd hand units will,probably feel & handle fine for you.

ba_barabus

rebel.ranter wrote: »

To be honest if you've been driving around with two broken rear springs & you isn't notice any replacements, even 2nd hand units will,probably feel & handle fine for you.

Only got the car tbh.

Was surprised they were gone as there isn't a creek or knock from it.

challengemaster

Most common failure point on E46's, happens to all of them sooner or later. Most people don't notice the rear of the car sump because so many E46 are driving around with broken springs, it looks normal. Luckily it's also about the easiest thing to replace on the car - about an hour in total I'd say.

Jack up car + put on stands
Remove wheel
Undo lower bolt holding shock
Rear wishbone will drop
Stand on this as hard as you can and yoink the spring out
Do in reverse to replace

This is what the rear wishbone looks like