My wife's 2004 Stratus SE needs front struts - mechanics recommendation. Thought so before I went there because the card thumps and grinds on every pothole and the noise is coming from the front, but prefer to make sure. His quotes for the parts are high though - 120 per each strut without coils, so additionally I need to pay for exchanging the coils as well. And labor, of course.
Monroe has Quick Strut Complete Strut Assembly that include the coils but only for the rear for this car. I would rather buy the complete assembly and bypass going to a shop and paying for the work. Prefer to put those money into a whole new assembly. Can someone recommend a decent brand for such complete assembly? Now, I am not looking for any performance. My wife puts about 5-6 miles a day driving the car only to pick up and drop off our daughter from school and she switches to public transportation to commute. She puts like 5k miles a year on it at most. All I want is safety and that they last like min 20-30k miles. I don't intend to keep it more than the next 3 years or so.
Any ideas would be appreciated.
Thanx.

 

Rock auto has complete front struts for $82 each

 

Don't know that I've ever found complete fronts for sedans. Get a compressor and do them yourself anyway.

Do what I did, get some KYB struts, a spring compressor, and a set of B&G lowering coils. They were great, mild drop, excellent ride, tightened handling.

 

main reason there's not that many aftermarket front strut units is the cost of front mount, rock auto its over 111.00 each dodge over 200 . I've never seen any reviews on fcs , the few I've seen on unity weren't bad ,if you do decide to buy them get the unity with control arm ,getting the arm off is extremely difficult without taking strut apart, the bolt hits the spring have to really pry on spring(2 person job) or cut bolt off and replace

 

Thanks for responses. I looked at them and noticed that unlike rear struts they don't have lower mounts, at least not pictured on any of those units. How come? Do I need to reuse the old ones? Somehow I don't think so. Is it only a matter of incomplete pics?

 

neither front or back have separate actual "bottom" mounts, the pictures are correct , the front sit inside strut mounting fork , the back go over a bushing on hub assembly ,

 

Yeah, I looked at it today, you are correct. I will try rock auto, seem like they have reasonable prices.
Thank you for your help! It's really appreciated.