There is a cool website called autoMD that lets you price standard jobs. You can put your zip in to get local pricing, too. With Arnott parts (L&R), it is saying $1500-$2300 for Maryland (sounds stupidly expensive to me). Knowing the parts are $700-$1100, so just using the averages, they are counting on about $1000 in labor (call that ~10 hours). Don't know what fraction of that you expect to pass along to your friend....

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David.X5
2001 X5 4.4i Sport
SOLD! at 160k miles