I recently called a handful of shops to see the price to install a set of coilovers. Meineki quoted me 1100$ and les schwab at 1000$ including springs and alignment. Is it just me or is that expensive?
anyway I’m hoping anyone can suggest a different place because the springs were only 200-250 and the rest is labor. I would love to do them myself but I’m not super capable and I don’t want to risk messing it up. Any suggestions help, thanks!

 

(it would help if you tell us where you are located)

 

My MINI dealer charged 480.00 (520.00 total w/ tax) to install Cravens. I waited a couple of weeks for them to settle in. Alignment was 240.00. They also replaced the dampers which I provided, about 80.00 total for the parts. This was about a year ago. You may want to wait a while before the alignment. They soften a bit and your teeth quit rattling. You also get use to them, like going over speed bumps, when to take a sip of coffee and when not to...

 

I co-own a euro specialist shop. 1100$ is robbery , those places are charging you 3x book time.... at my shop for lowering springs I will bill it at out at 3.5-4hours of labor depending on how new the car was (they use road salt here) so stuff even on a 3-4 year old car can get rusted up easily. Maybe even quote for a new set of front drop links just incase.. alignment 100-150$

 

Not just you. That's crazy expensive and about what I was quoted from the only two shops around Seattle willing to install the NM Alpha springs for me. Most weren't even willing to do the install even though their sites said it's something they do. Ended up returning the springs because I'm not paying that absurd labor charge.

 

$200 to $300 just for spring install here in SF Bay Area

 

I had 3 Mini dealers (MA&RI) quote around $1000 for a strut/coilovers. They claim to have never done coilovers before-?
That price disgusted me so I ended up doing it myself. For reference, it's no harder than any other strut replacement I'd done.

 

3.5-4hours of labor is Socal is nearly $800!!