CV Joint Covers? Options

[CheesyLobster]

Hey guys,

I have been experiencing a cracking sound when I turn my wheel for about 6 months now. I am pretty sure that it is broken CV joint covers. Today I brought the cars in for an estimate and they quoted me 150 for each side, plus 2 hours labor, which comes out to about $600 for the whole job. I have a few questions that I was hoping someone could answer who has experience with this sort of thing:

-Is $600 a fair price?
-Should the whole axle assembly be replaced? I was thinking that they'd just do the boots but the mechanic said that it was only an extra $50 to do the whole thing (on the estimate they called it REMIN CV COMPL ASSY), and that no one just does the boots.
-How difficult of a job would this to be to do myself? How long would it take? If I do do it myself, where can I get the parts for cheep?

Thanks for the help guys!

[96stgreendemon]

definitely get new seals, i had to replace mine after installing the cvs the first time, get a good breaker bar and a 30mm axle nut socket, an oxy acceteline torch works wonders too, we broke 3 breaker bars taking the axle nut off my drivers side, 1 gear wrench, and 2 snapon's, heated it up till red hot and it came right off, just remember thought, when you pull your drivers side cv tranny fluid will go everywhere unless you drained it prior to servcing the cv's which you should do anyways. as far as new tranny fluid goes i like penzoil sencromesh. good luck, pm me if you need any help i just did all this last week