Got a 2009 Jetta Wolfsburg a few years ago for the teenage drivers. It's been a decent car. Spent a year in Rexburg, and now my Senior in High School is driving it. Bought it with low miles (60k in 2019), and now it's got ~100k.

Put new tires on it in December 2020, and after about 20k miles, the front left tire completely wore through on the inside. I looked and the driver side tire was also worn very unevenly and was almost to the steel belts. So I just replaced those tires. Had my son go get the alignment check out at a chain-type repair shop, but they told him that the suspension is completely shot and requires a rebuild, and estimated $4k to do that. Not sure I completely trust them. That's probably about what the car is worth right now. But without some repair, we'll be chewing through tires every year.

I'm setting up an appointment with my normal European shop to see what they say. Took a quick look at the used car market and it's still not great. Might be able to sell it for $4-5k, but not a lot of cars available in that price range. And my son wants to keep a stick shift, and there's hardly any manual transmission for sale that I see. But I don't want to spend too much on a car for a teenager.

So my question - how hard is DIY suspension work if it comes to that? I've always done work on my own cars except for the major stuff, but find that I don't have a ton of time for that kind of stuff anymore.