New rear shocks installed. Pics. Went with KYB 349070

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'11 Mazda CX-9 GT AWD
Fairly easy, but tedious because of the need to remove the side panels and I opted to remove the third-row seat for better access and less headache in the long run. Thus, a lot of screws. It really got to the point of absurdity; like it was a German design. Usually Japanese vehicles are more straight-forward...

Having said that; I didn't have any major issues at all.

Tools needed (from memory).

7mm socket
10 mm socket
14 mm socket
15 mm socket
Vice grips or crescent wrench
KYB 349070 Excel-G Gas Shock X2

I bought the shocks from RockAuto. Google a coupon code for 5% off. $102.97 and arrived in 2-3 days.

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Start removing screws. 10mm

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Here's an idea of all the screws you will be removing. Get a bag and put all your parts in them. Do one side at a time so you can reference the other side when putting it back together...

Also, the cup holder needs to be removed. Pry it up and pull it off. Don't worry, you won't (likely) break it.

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Pull up and remove the trim pieces around the bumper (where the tailgate hooks/secures). As I recall it is removed in three pieces. Could have sworn I took a pick of that...

Remove the rear tray. This just pulls up and out.

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You are going to want to remove the silver metal bracket over the sub-woofer. These are still 10mm screws.
 
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I opted to remove the third row seat. I didn't want to bend the panels for fear of breaking them. And access to the upper bolt was super tight.

There are three bolts in the rear and three bolts in the front. The fronts have covers that easily pry off. You have to put the seat backs back up to access the front bolts.

As I recall these were 15 mm. I left the seat inside just pushed it forward.

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Yeah, I am pretty frustrated by how much work this has become at this point.

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Finally I am able to safely pull the side molding back. It just snaps in place. Try to find the attachment points and pull from there.

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Definitely missing some pictures. They must not have all uploaded. Doing the best I can here! I will add more later when I figure out what happened.

This pic compares the two shocks. Surprisingly when I got it out it actually had some decent damping left in it. However, you can see in this pic it is starting to leak. They have 94k miles on them. After install, I did NOT notice a huge difference; but the rear end did some quieter to me and possibly softer as well, which I don't mind. It might be that the new shocks just have better damping due to being new. New is always better than old, especially that old...

The front struts actually seem worse; particularly on frost heaves. Hope to do those later.

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So I know some people claim that KYB is the OE supplier for the shocks/struts. That may certainly be true but you can see there are differences between the OE and aftermarket shocks and bushings. Compare the last two pics and you can see obvious differences.
 
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Added a new pic... forgot to mention removal of the 15 mm bolt holding a third-row seat seatbelt.

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Added a new pic... here is the removal of the top two stem bolts.

One weird thing I discovered was that there were TWO top nuts on the stem. I used a 7mm ratchet to hold the stem in place and used (14 mm?) ratcheting wrench to break the top and lower nut.

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This is a pic of the install and tightening of the stem and top nut. I used a vice grip at first. The instructions (which I read later) said to use a crescent wrench which I did on the other side. It was a little bit easier and I got it a little tighter (I think).

Also, the KYB shocks only came with one top nut. I went ahead and used the second nut from the OE shocks for extra piece of mind.

So I didn't take pics of the lower bolt/nut. It is easy, especially if you use a impact wrench like I did. I used a crescent wrench on the inner nut and hit the bolt with my impact wrench. It was cake. Actually, it is an easy way to check how much damping your shock still has. Just remove the lower bolt and work the shock and see if it expands properly. It is easy to put it back in place and re-install the bolt.

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Added new pic. Another picture of my leaking driver-side shock. I think it was KYB that had a video that said that while a leaking shock is an obvious sign of a failing/worn shock, internally it can begin to fail and never show signs of leakage.
 
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Glad you posted this. While replacing front & rear rotors/pads a few days ago, I noticed (to my horror) my driver side rear shock completely covered (bottom half) in oil. I guess for a 2008 with 94k miles, I shouldn't be too upset seeing as how this is the first part on the vehicle to fail. I'm not planning to take the rear seats out. Hoping to be able to move the panels far enough away to work in there. But We'lle see. Looks like another Saturday will be down the drain to get this done. Thanks for the pictures!
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edit: 2 on the way from Amazon. I wonder how much it would cost to pay someone to install these. Just don't know if I will have any time before moving soon. But throwing money away to have someone put the car on the lift and bend the rocker flange welds is a hard pill to swallow.
 
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I did mine about a month ago. I understand why the mounts are hidden, being an SUV, but man it makes it a lot more time consuming.

Nice write up!
 
When I did mine I took out the 3rd row. I also did some cleaning while I had access. Took me 4 hrs but I took my time and also took some breaks. With mine the hardest part was loosening the first nut on top. I don't understand why it had 2 nuts on each of the shocks on top. When I put the new ones in I only used the 1 nut supplied with each shock.
 
Well got everything out but ran out of light, and time. Will do the actual replacement of the shocks this weekend hopefully.
Everything was pretty easy except for getting the 2 rear seats out...big hands, small spaces.

 
Since you got all that out vacuum the carpet. That is the only time you will have access to this part of the carpet. Looks like you took out a lot more than I did, but I really don't remember since I did this a couple of years ago.
 
That looks like way too much work. I removed just enough of the fasteners to be able to get a socket with a 24" extension powered by my impact gun to the nut on the shock. Only took about an hour to do both rears.
 
Did you take out the 3rd row?

I did. Looks like you ended up doing the same. After all the work of taking everything else apart, I figured why not???? At that point I was in it to win it and didn't want to take the chance of breaking anything.

Now I am getting ready to do the front struts... never done struts before.
 
If you do the fronts can you post pics and a write up. I have seen a lot of right ups for the rear shocks but never the front struts. I am very interested in the cowling panel removal. I can get the wipers off but I only see 2 screws on the outside of the plastic cowling and I don't think that it is only 2 screws that keep it in place.
 
Did you have the cx-9 jacked up when removing the top bolt of the rear shock? Can you remove the bottom bolt without having the cx-9 jacked up? Also, does the tire need to be removed? Im not too car saavy, but Im attempting to replace my rear shocks on my 2008 (one has started leaking and making noises). Any info would be of great help. Thanks to those who have provided so much already!
 
The shock has the threaded post on top so to remove shock you need to jack up and remove wheel. Yes you can unbolt top nuts before raising car.
 
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