Originally Posted by motohide

OOHHHhhh. Sorry I had mistakenly assumed you had air suspension. LOL My mistake. Yes, parts are significantly cheaper if you do not have air suspension.

Yeah standard and sport suspension packages are not all that different, and both are standard coil spring setup. The sport suspension pack uses a slightly higher valved strut and lower, stiffer coil by slight margin. To replace the rear strut you keep the original springs (or go aftermarket springs is you want it a tad lower for small price of about $250~400 extra.) and shocks themselves are about $350 for OEM or $150 each for aftermarket equivalent inserts.

Since the coils are compressed on the struts, you need a spring compressor to disassemble them once off the car. If you do not have proper tools or previous experience on replacing these, its best to let the dealer do it since there are a lot of things that can go wrong if you don't do it correctly.

For more than 1.5" drop though, a coil over system from aftermarket should be used to properly setup a shorter stroke suspension system with adjusted suspension travel (but that's another topic)

Also, anytime the suspension is disassembled to any degree, there will be a need to perform a four wheel alignment, which can only be done at dealer or properly equipped alignment shop. So even doing it yourself, the costs can add up a bit if you want it perfectly setup. Some argue that only rear alignment should be done with rear changes, I differ in saying that proper alignment of a double wishbone suspension should always include 'thrust angle' alignment that involves all four wheels in relation to each other.

A typical 4 wheel computer alignment runs from $100~$300 depending on the shop/dealer.
So if the dealer quote of $1000 includes all parts, labor and alignment job, I say its still a good deal unless you have all the necessary tools and resources to tackle it yourself.