Looking for a confidence boost, is it really only 3 bolts to replace my leaky rear shock? I can do this myself as a kind of ordinary guy with tools that knows which way is tight and loose, right? is there anything to look out for?

 

I think the most annoying part of the job is dealing with the wheel well liner. The trunk part I guess is a little annoying as well. Once you get the wheel well liners out, the upper shock mount is held in by two 13mm nuts. The shock bolts through the lower control arm with an E14 bolt and 16mm nut. I jacked up the control arm to finesse the bolt in and out but otherwise was a pretty easy job. Unlike the Bilsteins in my E55, I was able to unhook the plug at the shock so I didn't have to run all of the harness all over the place like I did in the E55. That was nice.

 

It’s even easier to do than that. I didn’t even bother removing wheel well liner. Just popped the nuts off from inside of the trunk and pulled the shock out.

 

Thanks for the info, both of you. Guess i'll order the part once i confirm the number. I should probably just do both, right?

 

I liked the visibility and I feel like I had to pull in a direction that would have been blocked but obviously it's possible. Sometimes I find myself wanting to take shortcuts (i.e. not remove something) and simply working around the obstacle adds more time and stress than if I had just removed the thing. So I put this in that category.

Did you do the job on a lift? I did mine on a Quickjack. It is possible that the lift makes it a lot easier to thread the shock directly down until you clear the wheel well liner.

Both of my rear shocks were leaking. I elected to get two used shocks on eBay (mine were from a 15 CLS63). Saved like....$1000 and they have been working great. I think what the car really needs is front struts though...

 

My rear drivers side one was leaking. I just put a Jack stand underneath to hold that side of the car up. Then used a pump jack to compress the strut. Took about 30 minutes. Didn’t even have to remove the trunk liner either. I took the same route as you and but a used one off of eBay from a low mileage CLS 63.

 

It's too bad these damn Monroe shocks are so ridiculously pricey. When a Monroe is more than a Bilstein, I have to ask some fundamental questions.