BMW F10 5 Series Rear Subframe Removal & Replacement

This F10 530d you’ve seen on the channel before is, unsurprisingly, broken again. I did a video a few months ago now recounting how we miserably failed at replacing the subframe bushings – so this time we are going to do it right. We decided that buying a used subframe and replacing the bushing on that out of the car was the best option. We used a mixture of a cheap hydraulic press and a bearing press kit to get all four subframe bushes in place, and the three diff bushes in too. So, onto the removal and replacement…

I’m going to save your time and mine here and show you things out-of-order for what we did, but how I’d recommend you do it if you are mad enough to attempt such a feat yourself. We also cut plenty of corners as always so no, this isn’t the “BMW approved method”.

Obviously you’ll need to jack up the car. The higher you have it the better really, of course while being safe. Once it’s in the air, crack the wheels off and remove the brake callipers – you can hang them on the springs as they’ll be staying with the car. Remove the wiring harnesses clipped to the control arm, and disconnect the wheel speed sensor wire too. You’ll want to head a little towards the front of the car to remove the cross brace – there’s eight bolts to remove there and I think two screws that go into the felt underbody panels. 

You’ll need to drop the exhaust down – start with the hanger to the front side of the rear left wheel assembly. You’ll need a pry bar to pull it off. Then the two mounts towards the back of the car, one is two I think 16mm nuts and the other is a single nut of the same size. Once that’s on a jack stand, remove the shock absorber bolts at the bottom – I think 21mm – and use a pry bar to pop them out of their mount. You’ll also need to remove the prop shaft centre bearing and the 18mm bolts and nuts holding the prop shaft to the flex disc. Then you can remove the 21mm bolts holding the subframe in. Use a jack to carefully lower the assembly down. You’ll need to carefully manoeuvre it past the exhaust, but once it’s out you are good to drop it to the ground.

You can then use as along a breaker bar as you’d like to loosen all the 21mm and 17mm nuts and bolts, remove the three bolts holding the diff and pull the subframe straight off. Getting the new one on takes some wrestling, we put the diff bolts in first, then the control arms. Make sure to get the alignment disks the right way round and line them up with where they were on your old subframe. Once everything is tight, if you are going to replace the flex disk, now is the time. Otherwise getting it back in is even harder than getting it out… It is just the reverse of removal though, but with a lot more wiggling and grunting.