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Aftermarket struts are approximately $300 ea. You'll also need to replace your shocks too, ~$150 ea. The sDrive 35i rotors are compound rotors, with aluminum hats and iron discs. Very expensive and hard to manufacture. They're around $300 ea for the front, $200 for rears. Plus $150 for brake pads per axle. Just PARTS alone:
Front strut: $300 x 2 = $600
Rear shocks: $150 x 2 = $300
Front rotors: $300 x 2 =$600
Rear rotors: 200 x 2 = $400
Pads: $150 x 2 = $300
Sensor: $20 ea x 2 = $40
Not to mention all the ancillary hardware like bolts that are one use only on the suspension. Let's just be generous and call that $50 in hardware.
$600 + $300 + $600 + $400 + $300 + $40 + $50 = $2,290 in parts. Typically mechanics charge a 15% up-charge on parts, unless you supply your own. We'll "round down" to $2,600 for parts.
Let's use a reasonable hourly rate for an independent mechanic. $100/hr. By the books, the brakes take about an hour each axle. The rear suspension is easy, 1 hour. But the front require disassembling the strut assembly to replace. Now, I've done this multiple times, and I can tell you that it's about 4 hours total.
Brakes: 2 hours
Rear shocks: 1 hour
Front struts: 4 hours
For a total of 7 hours on the books, at $100/hr, that should be about $700 for labor alone. Let's just assume that you'll also need to flush your brake fluid and just round it off to an 8 hour job by the books. Labor: $800. Plus $150-200 for 4 wheel alignment.
So your average, honest mechanic should charge for this job $3,600 on book rate. Convert that to Canucks bucks, that's around $4,650. So the $5K estimate is a little on the high side, but that's not out of the norm depending on the shop's hourly rate.
I suggest, if you intend on keeping the car, to keep to a regular maintenance schedule. Rather than wait until the component breaks and need to be replace, replace them proactively throughout the year to spread out the cost.
Or learn to do all this yourself. Although the cost saving on the labor is but a small portion of the overall cost.
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