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Old 01-30-2021, 07:43 PM
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Join Date: Jan 2021
Location: South Bay Area, California
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Thumbs up X156 First-gen GLA45 Rear Suspension Replacement

Hey everyone, first post and decided to make it about the replacement of the rear struts on a 2016 GLA45.
I was looking to drop the suspension on my '45 so bought Bilstein B8s and some H&R lowering springs (my vehicle does not have any adjustable suspension from the factory) vs a full set of coil-overs. I wasn't looking for adjustability, just a lower stance.
The fronts came out easily and were straight-forward to replace.
The rears, on the other hand, are a different story. The spring is an off-strut design, as are most Mercs, and on the GLA, the strut mount is sold with the rear strut from Mercedes. The retaining nut is recessed and is a single 17mm nut. Seems straightforward, right? Wrong. The recessed hole is just barely larger than the outer diameter of the nut, so a regular socket won't fit - the wall of the socket is too thick. The Schwaben strut sockets (open sides) are also useless, as they suffer from the same wall thickness issue. So I could not actually access the nut using conventional sockets or strut removal tools.
Also note that Mercedes doesn't sell just the strut mount, they sell it with a strut already attached. There is no aftermarket strut mount available (assume b/c of the low volume of these vehicles).

I finally found a solution to get the factory strut mount off the rear strut.

What I found was, a 17mm shower wrench (looks like a tube with a dual-hex end and a hole for a bar to turn the tool) was the only thing that could both fit in the recessed hole and fit on the nut at the same time. It works like a charm, I got the strut mount off the original strut and transferred it over to the Bilsteins.
Now the job is complete, and hope this helps anyone who wants to tackle this job on their own - it's super simple, you just need a non-automotive tool to get the job done.


Last edited by jwiluck; 02-01-2021 at 08:19 PM.
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