I'm thinking of getting my old floor jack, and jack stands back from ages ago and replacing my own struts with this kit from FCP (used to be grotton, right?)

https://www.fcpeuro.com/products/volvo-complete-strut-assembly-s60-pps-72435828c

I expect it would take me about a day, but I like the whole concept of not using a spring compressor. (there is another brand on ebay and amazon which is "unity automotive"

car is near 150K miles and I expect to have it about 30 more months. the alternative plan is to just suck it up and pay for the whole thing mostly because I had a friend in HS end up with a compound fracture working with a spring compressor and I just don't want to use one.

so, anyone use have experience with them? the unity automotive ones seem too cheap to be any sort of quality.

Sounds good, but Pro Parts is not my cup of tea. The shocks are probably cheap, the spring seat soft, and new springs????

I bought a very good spring compressor, less than $60. It takes forever to compress the springs, but if you do it evenly, there is no problem. Then you can install just the parts you want, not what some cheap company throws together.

It takes me about 2 hours to do one strut. I always spend too much time trying to get the end link off!

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Keeping it running is better than buying new

got a quote from a chain tire shop which has a half off install, meaning I'll overpay for struts by about 20% but the total price (which includes realignment as I have an alignment from buying tires there a while back) about $650 for the Monroe struts with a warranty and it's walking distance to my real job. So ballpark $250 to enable my fear of spring compressors and have someone else do it and warranty it.

I came really close to going over to family house and taking back the jack stands. (I think I still might & do the rear shocks myself)

Another option would be to take your old spring/strut assembly along with the new strut, spring seat, strut mount, etc to a repair shop that can swap the parts over for you.
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Current rides: 2005 Volvo S80 2.5T, 2003 Volvo V70 2.4NA, 1973 Volvo 1800ES (getting ever closer to road worthiness)

A coil spring compressor is a pretty straight forward tool. Keep both sides even and you will wonder why you didn't buy one sooner.

Greg

I have heard that ProParts is the new ScanTech. Inferior parts at cheap prices.

My own experience is a ProParts fuel pump that lasted 6 months/3,000 miles. Yea, it was cheaper than a Volvo factory replacement. But leaving me stranded on the side of the road was not worth the $ saved.

Lesson learned. I'll never purchase ProParts again.
My $0.02.