[Dragula]

If you are not mechanically inclined get a pro to do it. These are suspension parts and your life could be in your hands.

That being said, I'm not a professional mechanic, but I did mine myself. It's not extremely hard to do, but you'll need an external strut spring compressor tool (set of two actually), a jack, some jack stands, and wrenches. I bought the tool at Sears, but your local auto part store may loan them out. I borrowed a tool when I lowered my Impala.

The rear doesn't require a special tool at all. Once you get the car up on jack stands and let the rear suspension hang, remove the wheels. Disconnect the upper (or lower) shock bolt on whichever side you're working on. This will allow the suspension to drop far enough for the spring to be removed. Watch it though. That spring is dangerous if all of the tension is not out of it. Then reverse everything to install.

The front is more difficult. You jack the car up and let the suspension hang. You have to disconnect the brake line, and the ABS sensor wire from the strut first. I then supported the front spindle with my jack so it wouldn't drop uncontrolled when I removed the strut. I first removed the lower strut bolt, and lowered the jack slowly. Then fron the engine compartment you have to remove the three top strut mounting nuts so it can be removed. Be very careful not to damage the boot below on the U/V joint as it's removed. You then use the spring compressors (following the instructions provided with the tool) to get the spring loose in the strut. Be very careful here because that spring can cause you great harm if it springs loose.

The top nut on the strut shaft is tricky. I imagine there's a tool for this as well, but I used a combination of a spark plug socket that fit the nut, a 1/4" drive socket to hold the post, a quarter inch extension that passed through the spark plug socket to a 1/4 drive ratchet, and a wrench to turn the spark pug socket. I know it sounds confusing. I wish I had a photo to show you. That removes the top spring perch from the strut. Then you carefully decompress the spring. The new spring will need to be Carefully compressed so that you can install it. Then the rest is just bolting everything back together. Always use torque values from the manual and get an alignment done afterwards.