Shocks & struts on my wife's G35 are pretty bad (125K miles on the originals), so it's time to replace. I'm going with factory replacements. Any tips or advice?

I've done my truck a couple of times and used to do my GTI back in the day. I'm thinking I'll need spring mounts and strut mounts. Is there a tool to keep the strut shaft from rotating while loosening the strut bolt?

 

I'm in the process of inventing such a tool, but I've always just used pliers to hold the shaft and use a gooseneck wrench to loosen the bolt.

 

I just changed mine. I would recommend KYB over OEM. Same thing at half the cost... I bought a 1/2 inch impact wrench from Ryobi since i had other Ryobi powertools. You should get the extended battery also. Without this tool its hard to take the strut and put it back on. Easy to compress the spring compressor tool with the Impact driver. Saved me a lot of frustration. You can pop the top nut off the stock strut on the floor with you foot holding down the strut. There is not that much compression on the spring so nothing will go flying.

 

I replaced my front struts last year. Borrowed a spring compressor tool from O'Reilly's, but it didn't work at all. Ended up taking the struts to Big O Tire and they swapped out the damper/shock for $20.