How to Replace Throttle Body 1997-2006 BMW 325 Xi

What's up guys? I'm Andy from 1A Auto. In this video, I'm going to show you how to replace the throttle body on those 2001 BMW 325xi. If you need parts for your vehicle, click the link in the description, head over to 1AAuto.com.

All right, the battery is in the trunk. I want to disconnect the negative terminal, I'm just going to use a 10mm wrench. Loosen up this nut right here. Then grab the connector and disconnect that. Set it aside. We're going to remove this piece. I just want to take some side cutters. Remove these push pins. Be careful not to cut them. Pull that out. Now we'll just grab this, pull this aside. There is a couple of clips on there. If it's not coming out too easy, just take a straight blade screwdriver and push those in. Disconnect the mass air flow sensors, push it down. Wiggle the connector off. Set that aside. Take a straight blade screwdriver, loosen up this worm clamp. Right there. Just like that. We can take that snorkel off right now.

Next, I'm going to take these two 10mm bolts out. You could take this top cover off first if you want to unclip it, pull that off, pull the air filter out, but I'm going to keep that all together. Use a 10mm socket, extension, and electric ratchet. If you don't have an electric ratchet, use a regular ratchet. Loosen these up. Take those two bolts out. Then I can grab the air box all as one and just slide it out.

I need to remove these wires from this housing right here. You can either take the cover off or you can slide it up right there. I like to take this cover off. Just take a screwdriver, slide that off like that. Pull that out of the way. Grab these wires. Pull that down, pull this one down. Now I'm going to use a T30 socket, extension, and a ratchet and I have four screws right there. Take those off. So it's all all loose, just slide this panel up. Slide it out of your way.

I'm going to take this intake snorkel off. I want to take these two hoses off right here. You can just grab them and twist them. Slide them out. You could you use the little pick in there if you're struggling to get this off. All right. Just go around like that. Then you should be able to twist it off. It should come off a little bit easier. And if you have hose pliers, you can use hose pliers. Hose makes it a lot easier. Take that off.

There's a hose that slides off this intake tube right here, so there's two different hose clamps that I have to remove, this one and then one that's further in there. It's kind of hard to see, so I'm just going to take a pocket screwdriver. slide underneath here. Try to get on it on it then loosen that hose clamp. You'll build a seed a little better once I get this snorkel out. It was actually a little bit easier to take a 6mm socket, extension, and a ratchet and loosen that worm clamp up like that.

Now, I'm going to put it on a longer extension. I'm going to try to get this one out. If not, I'm going to have to use a screwdriver. Use a ratchet, 6mm socket. Try to get this to loosen up. Okay, so those are both loosened up. Just grab it, wiggle it a little bit. Twist it back and forth. Make sure you don't rip it and slide it up. Just like that.

We want to take the dipstick tube out. There's a bracket right here that has a retainer that holds this vacuum line, and then also the fuel line right here. Just slide the fuel line out. Just pop it out like that. Then this little bracket, I'm just going to take some needle nose pliers and just pinch this together. Push it through. A little bit tricky to get in there, but here we go. Push that through. Then there's a bolt down here that's going towards the front of the vehicle, so we're going to take a 13mm socket and a ratchet. If you have a flex head ratchet, that would help out.

All right, so I was able to break it free. If you struggle with this, you can try breaking it free with a wrench. It's just really tight in there. All right. Take that bolt out. All right, so let's take a right angle pick, try to get in underneath it. Then just go around the hose, loosen up that seal. It's kind of made a seal and that's what makes it stick to the hose. Now that loosened, I should be able to twist this. Yup. And pull it off. There we go. Grab the dipstick tube and just slide it up.

All right, so we've got the dipstick loose. What we want to do is take this cover off right here because we can't get the dipstick to slide any further up, so loosen this up right here, take that off. Take this weather stripping off right here, slide this up, slide this wire out of the way. Oops, it fell down. Just make sure these hoses are not attached. Slide the hoses out of the way. We should be able to slide this cover back. Watch out for this vacuum hose right here. It slides out pretty easily. Then you can slide the dipstick up. A little bit easier to get that out. There you go.

I would recommend taking this cover out before you started taking the dipstick out. It'll give you a little bit more room in there and it'll be less of a struggle for you.

Connector right here. Remove this connector, a little tab right there. Push down on that, slide that off. There's another connector right under here. It's kind of hard to see. Push down on that. Slide that out. You can mark all these connectors if you want to, but they pretty much don't give you enough wire to connect them in the wrong spot, so you should be all set trying to figure out which connector goes where when you're going to put it back together. Just slide that one out. Right here there's one that goes to the alternator. Just disconnect this connector just like that. There's one more connector down here. This goes to a camshaft sensor. You can you disconnect this one. I think we could probably leave this one plugged in, but we'll disconnect it anyway.

I'm going to use a 10mm socket, extension, and ratchet. Take this old bolt right here. Then I'm going to take this nut out. Still use the same socket and ratchet. Get that nut off. Right by the throttle body, there's a another nut that's attached. You're going to have to go under the wire over this wire right here. Take a 10mm socket, extension, and a ratchet. Get that one out. Once you crack it free, you can loosen it by hand. Pull the nut out and you'll be able to slide this out. That should be out of our way. There's a wire tie right here. I'm just going to cut that off. Just use some side cutters. There we go. Pull these wires out. Then is this vacuum line right here. Let me take this out of that retainer right there.

The connector that comes from this junction block right here, a junction of wires, and just follow the wire up. Disconnect the connector right there. That one right there, just push down on that little spring clip. I'm just going to disconnect this vacuum line right here. Move that out of the way a little bit. Just keep in mind how that was rooted. Just that all there. Now there's a little more room.

Next, I want to take this idle air control out. I'm going to use a T30 socket, extension, and a ratchet to take these two screws out. Okay, take that out. I'll take this one out. All right. Pull that screw out. Grab the idle air control valve. Just pull on it. It should come right out. All right. I really had to force it out. I kind of grabbed it like this and then used my other hand and pulled it real hard to get it out. There's just a rubber grommet that holds it in there.

All right, so this throttle body connector right here, we'll disconnect that. Just push down on that tab and slide the connector off. Just like that. Put that out of the way.

All right. We're going to pull the throttle body off and use a 10mm socket, extension, and electric ratchet. Can you use a regular ratchet if you don't have an electric one. Take these four bolts out. There's two more on the bottom. All right. Slide that out. Now I can grab the throttle body and just slide it out. Make sure the gasket comes with the stronger body, or you can peel it off the intake if it gets stuck to the intake.

All right. Make sure you have a new seal. If you don't have a new seal, just make sure it's at least raised up from the actual throttle body, which is good. Then also make sure you clean this surface right here. Just take a little brake parts cleaner on a rag and just wipe this down. Make sure that surface looks good.

Take the throttle body with your new gasket, slide that in position. Then Take one of the bolts. All right, that's good. Now, I'll just take a 10mm socket and ratchet and I'll snug these bolts up. Not too tight. Take this idle air control valve. Make sure the grommet is in the intake in a proper location, and we'll line this little part right into that grommet. Slide it in. And take these screws, get these lined up. Then get the other ones started right here. Just get them both started then you can snug them down. Just take a T30 socket and a ratchet and we'll snug these up. That's good.

Now I want to reattach this piece, but just make sure any connectors you can get, plug those in. This one was to the oil temperature sensor, so that was right there. Then once we attached this, there's a stud right here. That, then there's a stud down below here. Make sure you get that bracket on the stud. I'm going to I take the two nuts. This one that goes up here, get that one started, one goes through this lower stud. Get that one one. Then we have a bolt that goes right there. Install that bolt. Then, I'll just take a 10mm socket and a ratchet. Tighten this up and those other two nuts. For this lower nut, i just use a extension. It's kind of hard to get to. Just snug this one up as well.

Now, we're going to plug in the throttle body connector right there. Line it up, lock it in place. There's a crank sensor connector right here. Line that up. Lock that in place. Connector's going to go right here. Lock that in place. This connector goes to the idle air control valve right here. Line that up, lock it in place.

Where the dipstick hole is, where it goes into the engine, there's an actual O-ring there. It's a good idea to replace that O-ring if possible. You're going to have to use a pick and then try to pick it out and just make sure it doesn't fall into the engine oil pan, but ours looks okay, so I'm not going to, but if you could end up with a backing leak afterwards or even an oil leak, so just keep that in mind if you're pulling the dipstick too hard.

All right, so with the new O-ring. take the old O-ring out or the engine. Just slide that up there. Then you can lubricate this with some white lithium grease or some engine oil. Now just line this up in position. These coolant hoses kind of get in the way a little bit, kind of have to move those out of the way. I'm going to slide that down just like that.

All right. Push that dipstick down. Make sure it goes down all the way. What you could do is take a mirror and just check the bracket, make sure the bracket's lined up with the bolt hole. Sometimes it can be tricky. Just make sure you lubricate the O-ring and you should be able to get it. Now I'm going to put the bolts in. I just have to get it lined up. All right, now I'm going to tighten that bolt down. I'm actually going to use a 13mm swivel socket and an electric ratchet. If you don't have a swivel socket or an electric ratchet, you can use a regular one. It just there's not a lot of room to work back here, so we'll just tighten this up. Snug it down. I'll go back with a wrench. Just use a 13mm wrench and just snug it. You could use a ratchet ranch, also. There we go, that's good.

Here's the other end of that breather or the drain hose, and we're going to slide that onto the dipstick tube right here. There we go. Just slide it all the way on. That's good.

Now, I did take this bracket off before I put the dipstick tube on. This is just going to hold the fuel line, so I'm just going to reinstall that. Just slide that back into the bracket on the dipstick tube right there. Its kind of hard to see. Then slide the fuel line back in there. If these hoses got in your way, you could remove this bracket when you're doing the dipstick, so we'll just reinstall this, slide these hoses back in, and then this will slide right over here. That's good.

Next, before I install this panel right here, it is going to be significantly easier to install this snorkel, so we're going to install this now. When we took it up, we did it the other way, but it's a lot easier to get this in. Just line this up. Make sure you're worm clamps around there.

Then from up here, I'm just going to use this screwdriver, a straight blade screwdriver and tighten up that worm clamp. It goes on that top port of the snorkel. Snug that up. Then do the same with the bottom one. We're going to take these vacuum lines. One goes to the top. This comes right off the intake right there, and then this one comes from underneath there. Install that. That's good. Now we'll take this cover, slide this over here. If you struggle with this, you can pull the brake booster hose off, get a little more room. There we go. Get it lined up.

It's actually one of these push twist retainers would hold this in. Let me just get that lined up. Push it in. Yup, so that's good. You may have one over here. This vehicle did not have the one there, so keep that in mind. We'll take this vacuum hose that goes to the brake booster. Line this up right there. Let me insert it into the booster. Same with this wire. Slide this right there. Now we can take the weather strip. Get this lined up just like that.

Install the dipstick. We can reinstall the air box. Put that back in position. Move this clamp over here. Install these two bolts here and here. Take a 10mm socket, extension, and a ratchet. Tighten these bolts up. just snug, That's good. Use a straight blade screwdriver and tighten up this worm clip snug, and plug this connector to the mass air flow sensor. Lock in place. Take this intake, put this back through the air box. Clip it in place. Take the push pins. Get these lined up. I'm just going to get them all started first and then lock them down. Lock it down.

All right, now we want to install this. Just get this lined up. You can get these screws started. I'm going to take a T30 socket, extension, and a ratchet and tighten these up. Now, I'll reinstall these wires in this cover right here. Just like that. Take this cover and line it up. That's good.

Take the filter. We're going to slide it in with the curved side towards the vehicle, so the bowed side more towards the out of the vehicle. Just slide that into position like that. We'll take this cover. It's going to just slide in underneath this weatherstripping. Just push it in. Get these lock tabs to line up and lock them down. They're spring loaded. And the last one, and you're good to go.

Reconnect the battery. Put the negative terminal on. Take a 10mm wrench and just tighten up this nut, and just snug it up. Make sure it's tight, it doesn't wiggle loose. You're good to go.

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