Thanks for the advice guys. I hate going to mechanics anyways because I don’t know enough about cars to tell if I’m being taken for a ride. I try to find out what I can so that I can be better prepared but short of becoming one myself, there isn’t much I can do.
As for the leaking, I’ve been looking under the car to see if there’s any fluid and haven’t found any.
eta: another thing I found odd, the mechanic mentioned that the struts have to be looked at every 50K miles, so I’m long overdue. I’ve been seeing them awhile so I wondered why this wasn’t mentioned before.