Toyota Corolla E120 rear strut replacement

I have my Toyota Corolla since 2020, and it’s a pretty good/balanced car, with low maintenance (until now, only the tires and the brake pads were replaced).

Recently, one of the rear struts came to end of life and required a replacement. My first though was to go to the Toyota garage, but when I saw the amount for the replacement it makes me hallucinate (776€, with 226€ for one strut…), because if you have to replace the two rear struts, parts are costing around 300€ (shock absorbers, springs, protections and cups), and it’s Monroe parts, so good quality parts (not Bilstein high ends parts but it’s not a racing car).

Here are the parts purchased:

Shock absorbers (Monroe - G21660, 154€ for a pack of 2).
Springs (Monroe - SP3508, 58€ for each spring).
Protections (Monroe - PK326, 35€ for a pack of 2).
Cups (Monroe - MK294, 13€ x 2).

At the end, springs and protections were returned as original ones were in good conditions. Usually a spring is replaced when this one is broken or present some cracks.

There is a good video explaining how to proceed for the replacement, see Comment remplacer des amortisseurs arrière sur une TOYOTA COROLLA E120 TUTORIEL AUTODOC.

The procedure is also detailed in the Toyota Corolla service manual page 1255.

In my case, as I dont possess the tools (strut spring compressor, …) and a car elevator, replacement was performed in a “self garage” located in Rabastens, and it took us around 2h (40€).

The effective costs for the replacement was ~220€ (less than the price of a Toyota shock absorber…).

Thanks to Julien (self garage owner) for his precious help.