A few options:

a) go broke. not too desirable

b) get your hands dirty and leern a little (sounds preferable to me)

c) find another shop (hmm.. his quote does seem very HIGH!)

I'd do some of the work myself.

Compressing the coils is no big deal. any auto (decent) auto parts store will have an inexpensive coil compressor you can use. not a big deal.. tighen up the coil, yank it off... Just make sure you follow the instructions closely and use your own common sense...

If you're going to have the struts off to be replaced, you might as well do the ball joints yourself. Not a hard thing to do!

I've never done the whole tie rod replacement, but it doesnt look that hard. Replace both, since you're going to have to realign anyhow. And heck, if your gonna pull off the tie rods, make sure you put on new ends to save yourself trouble later.

While your front end is disassembled like a mofo, you might as well just pull off the components you need bushing pressed into, bring them and the new bushings to a local auto/machine shop and have them pressed in. probably wont cost you jack to have someone just do the pressing for you.

repack the wheel bearings too.. I think you'll have enough torn apart this will only add minuites to do.

The 240's front end is pretty damn easy to work on.. I really dont like mcpearson struts, but after you've done them a time or two, it's not much a big deal.

If you're not up for ripping down the front end quite a bit, you'll want to find a more reasonable shop. I think 18hr is a LOT more than it's going to take them!!

It might take you 18hr of labor total if it's your first time doing any of this.. but still!

Good luck!

-Nate