Bushings?

$500 for back breaks?! I am going into the wrong business with this whole psychology education. If you replace pads and rotors it will still take less than an hour to do it and cost maybe a hundred or so dollars in parts. If you just replace pads than it is about 30 dollars in parts or so. Heck, if I don't want to do it myself I can run down to the shop, pay $80 and they will do them for me and my car is about the same as yours.

Also for most bushings on the front suspension it should only take them a couple of hours worth of work to replace just about all of them on one side. Around here to do such a thing would typically cost you about 250-300 dollars if they buy parts, 150 if you do unless there are complications, like something breaks. I replaced a tie-rod, lower ball joint and hub/bearing last year myself out in the garage. It took a socket set, impact wrench, a jack and a few other tools, about 3 hours and less than 250 dollars. A guy I know who owns a shop said if I didn't want to do it he would for 350.

Point is, I think that mechanic is ripping you off. I know back when I was first getting back into civilian life and needed money (that hasn't changed much) I worked for a dealership. The mechanics loved to keep peoples cars a whole bunch of extra hours so they could charge them for it. For example, they would pull a car in to do a few things that would take about 2 hours, they would keep the car for 8 and charge the person for the whole time even though they didn't call and tell them that it was ready. They would say the job took that long.