So my 2003 Elantra got to 125K. The car bounces more than it should and my tires are showing bad "cupping" wear. So I decided to change my struts. I'll probably only do it once in the car lifetime so I better do it now and enjoy my ride for whats left of it (an other 100K?).

You'll need a friend to do this job and the strut coil compressor tool. An impact wrench is a nice-to-have.

1- Jack your car and secure with jack stands.
2- Remove wheels.


3- Remove every thing that is attached to the strut: ABS sensor, brake line


4- Remove the 2 bottom bolts


5- Hammer the bolts out


6- Once you're done removing the bottom bolts you can tilt the whole table out of the strut way. It's now time to remove the top nuts. Have someone holding the strut as you remove the 3 nuts that holds everything in place. Once your done lower the strut between the drive shaft and ball joint to clear the fender. Pull the strut out.




6b- You do the same for the rear struts but the access to the top nuts is tricky. You'll need to remove the side of the back seats (the part the doesn't go down when you flip your seats). It's held by one screw and a clip. The screw is at the bottom. If you push on your bottom seat you'll see it. Once it's removed slide the section up.



6C- An other thing about the rear struts is the stabilizer bar link. The link is attached to the strut and need to be removed. Be sure to hold the bolt on the rubber side as you loose up. You'll need a wrench #14 to hold it in place.


7- Use the coil compression tool to unseat the coil at both ends. Do not use an impact wrench to compress the coil!


8- Remove the locking screw on top and separate the strut from the coil.
9- Remove the boot and rubber seat from the old strut and install on new one.


10- Put the new strut in place and align the end of the coil properly with the bottom of the strut.
11- Lock the strut in place with the new lock screw supplied with your new strut.
12- Uncompress the coil and remove the compression tool.
!!! The struts are unique. Left and right are different. Be sure to mount the right strut for the right side otherwise your camber will be completely off !!!


13- For the front strut pack the top of the strut insulator with grease and put the cap in place.


14- With your friend put the strut back in place. You'll need to lineup the bolts with the wholes. You can't go wrong here because the bolts and holes have pattern. Secure the 3 top bolts.
15- Lineup the bottom wholes and put the bolts in place (May be a good thing to put never seize on theses). Secure the bolts.
16- Put all the tings that where attached to the strut back in place.
17- 4 Wheels alignment is a good idea after this job

Good job! You're done! Have a smooth ride with your new struts...

 

why can't you use an impact gun on the coil compressor?

 

That's what the instructions says with the tool. You need to compress the coil evenly or it may break. If the coil snaps you may get injured. When you do this job respect the coil! Play it safe: Take the extra 5 minutes and compress with a manual ratchet.

 

yes it makes sense but i have used an impact gun in the past. living dangerously. take a look at the end of the sway bar. does that look odd? hard to see unless you zoom in. this is a friends car. he lives in another town. says the front end clunks. looks like a broken sway bar to me.

 

this is the other side. i could not upload both pics together.

 

the car is my sons. he lives in another town. i looked at it yesterday. swaybar is fine. just some sort of support tab under the bar attaching point. not sure what it does. i drove the car over a good bump in their driveway and get a good squeak from the drivers wheelwell. i am going to try replacing the lower control arm. new bushings/balljoint so that will take care of just about everything that can make noise. or maybe swaybar bushings. next.

 

thanks for documenting this! i will use it in the future!

 

Please be very carefull using that type of spring compressor. Those are extremely dangerous and I feel that they should not be made anymore due to the fact that many people have been injured very badly and killed from them. I have a set of those in my toolbox at work and won't even use them. I bought them from another tech that was hard up for money mainly to keep him from using them anymore. I hate to sound like such a dad, but I have seen firsthand the power that these springs have when they come apart from the strut. It's not pretty......

FWIW, you could have taken the struts off the car and taken them to a shop and had them swap the struts for you for not much money at all. Heck, I would have done it for you for like $10. I'm a Hyundai Tech btw.

 

Great write-up, thanks. Did you have to have a front-end alignment done after the replacement? My 2000 Elantra pulls a tad to the right, is an alignment the only treatment?
Thanks.

 

good job on the diy. very nice indeed, sir.

and to bunklash, yes, a vehicle that goes to one side instead of straight may be in need of an alignment. i would suggest checking the tire pressures first, as well as for tire wear. tires themselves are also able to cause a pull (called a radial pull), but this is usually when the tires are new, or it on the back, just recently rotated to the front where the pull would be noticed. a good alignment shop would be able to diagnose the pull properly, and set your vehicle to specs. i suggest a shop that has hunter equipment, and provides a before and after printout of the measurements.


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