Brian, I try to do some work myself. My father has a Transmission and Auto shop in East Texas which is about 3.5 hours from here in Austin. I drive up often and with the benefits of a family owned Auto Repair shop. I use his facilities to do some of the work. I just recently replaced both upper control arms, lower ball joints and drag link. This all ran me around $ 400.00 out of pocket for parts. My labor was cheap it was $0.00. In all i've pumped in about $3000. into my 300 SDL in the last 3 years that I've owned it.