A-Premium Rear Complete Drive Shaft Prop Shaft Driveshaft Assembly Compatible with BMW E46 325xi 330xi 2001-2005, Replace# 26117502959

Had a rush job to get the rear drive shaft in my 2005 BMW 330xi fixed. Went with a "popular" supposedly quality company, FCP Euro, paid extra to get it "fast", three days. FCP Euro sent me a piece of garbage that was unbalanced and had a loose bolt in the shaft. They refunded me the cost of the shaft but I had to eat the shipping to me and I had to pay $100 to ship it back so it cost me $135 to let them send me inferior product. The extra labor to put the bad shaft in and take it out I also had to eat.All that to say I received a perfect shaft from A-Premium in 2 days with free shipping and if it had been defective they would pay for the shipping back. AND did it at 1/3 the cost of FCP Euro. Learned my lesson.

Bolted up perfectly and solved all my vibration issues from having a bad center carrier and guibo.

I placed the original driveshaft side by side to this one and it appeared to be almost an identical replica. The joints are replaceable which is a definite upgrade. Doesn’t look cheap at all. Very happy with the quality.

I know I could have just sent it back but I wanted to get my car back on the road. This thing came with extreme runout (over 20 thousandths) on the rear flange side and it vibrated pretty badly at highway speed. I ended up taking it to the local driveshaft shop and they repaired it, I have less into it than the china junk on rock auto but still a frustrating experience. I will at least give it 2 stars because the driveshaft shop was able to service it, unlike the original from the car.

Came very well packaged. Installation was a breeze and is balanced very well. Time will tell how it’s built but so far after 1,000 miles it’s holding up very well.

This is the second time I’ve ordered a part from A-premium and both times have been sent the completely wrong part, not sure how this happens twice, I can understand once but seriously twice now, if I’m gonna spend over $300 on a part I want it to be right the first time instead of wasting my time and money on parts I need but instead getting sent a part that’s not even close to the listing.

This guy fit nicely on my 2003 BMW 330XI has 220,000K miles without any hick up. Material seem to be highly made for cheap price, since, my car so old that i don't feel like spending over thousand of dollars for OEM part. This is my first time replacing drive shaft on this car and now we just have to wait for how long it will last.

Installed on a 2004 BMW E46 325XI with 175k miles.Pros:It's less than 1/3 the cost of an OEM drive shaft. The u-joints are serviceable (unlike OEM) and they rotate smoothly through all angles. The centering collar comes pre greased (don't forget to remove the cap!) So you just need 3 of the BMW self-locking nuts to re-attach the stock bolts through the new flex disk. These nuts are not on Amazon and shouldn't be reused (bolts can be though). However, the assembly comes with three new bolts and nuts holding the flex disk to the shaft so at least you don't have to get those. Those bolts were pre-torqued to spec on mine but I'd double check when you get yours. It comes fully assembled with the center bearing in place as well. All in the flex disk and bearing are a $75 value which makes this a real bargin. Shipping was fast, 3 business days for me and I live far from a city.Cons:The center bearing outer ring is larger than stock by a good margin and will not fit all the way into the channel it bolts to. Mine was able to get nudged with a rubber hammer about 85% of the way and then the bolts held it in tightly. If I really wanted to do it right I would have replaced it. With a new one I actually had on hand...but it wasn't a problem in the end.The biggest con is that the center collar-bolt that holds the halves together is torqued on at about 100 ft/pds! Getting it loose took exactly half of my install time (30 minutes). You have to loosen this collar to extend the shaft to fit the reach from transmission to differential. When it arrived the shaft was fully tightened at its shortest length which is about an inch too short.Overall this assembly solved my vibration issue. I had previously tried to just replace the center bearing on my original drive shaft but the u-joints were worse off than I expected. I wish I had just purchased this first. I was very scared to buy this on amazon and not one of the big euro-car service sites, but I'm really happy I did since I probably saved $200. I've only put about 150 miles on it so far but I think it should hold up just fine. The build quality is AT LEAST OEM and probably better in the serviceable u-joints.This project is very easy if you've had your exhaust off before. If your studs are rust-frozen on the exhaust you should add about 2-3 hours to free and replace those. If your exhaust comes off clean this is a 1 to 2 hour project depending on if you have a helper to pull the parking break on and off and rotate the wheels to line things up.Would buy again from this company. Will also update if anything changes over the next couple thousand miles.UPDATE 01/29/2023I've now driven 5,000 miles on this drive shaft and all is still good. I do mostly highway for about 150 miles a day. I started to notice a small vibration at speed and feared this item was going bad. Turns out I had a bad wheel bearing and an out of balance wheel. However, before I figured that out I removed my muffler and got into the tunnel for this drive shaft. Everything looked great and the U-joints seemed just like new. I replaced the two top-hat bolts holding the center bearing in place with a couple of Nylon Locking bolts. Since this bearing is a tiny bit too large for the space I worried that one day those bolts may loosen.On a side note, I've since installed an "A-Premium" window regulator with motor in the same car and it was great too. I'm glad I found this manufacturer.