So, we’re heading out of town for the weekend. We’ll be driving the wife’s car so you can imagine my delight when she called me on the way home from work to tell me that her car is making a bad squeeking noise.
So now it’s Friday night and I have to find someone to fix the brakes before we leave on Saturday. But, it’s not so bad, right? It’s not expensive to replace brake pads and, hey, it’s just something that has to be done every once in a while, right?
Wrong. We can’t just replace the brake pads because “everything is shot”. Of course it is. Could I have expected the mechanic to say anything different?
The perfect start to our vacation…a bill for half a grand to fix the brakes. Good times.
I’m no mechanic, but I’ve read enough online through car forums to understand the possible issues I need to fix and if they are out of my league then I go to the mechanic.
Just because your brakes made a bad squeeking noise, doesn’t mean they don’t have as much as 10,000 more miles on them. There is a tab on the break pads which rubs against the rotors and that is what makes the bad noise. It’s just an indicator sometimes a sensor that “warns” you that your brakes are getting low.
For normal cars, pads cost about $30-$40. I paid around $100+ for my car, but it’s more of a sports car and at the same time I replaced all 4 rotors, because I did the job in my garage. It’s not a hard job, but it does take some time to jack up the car, take off all 4 tires and then replace the brake pads and put them on the right way. Yes it is possible to put on the your brakes pads backwards.
I’m not sure what the mechanic replaced, but if he had help it would of taken no more than 2 hours of labor to replace the brake pads and rotors and any sensors underneath the car. The sensors just pull off and snap in under the car. Let’s say you paid $80 for pads. I looked up Rotors for a Honda Accord just as an example and they run about $300 for a set of 4. So $500 is not a bad price if they replaced everything. If you just had pads replaced or a set of rotors and not 2 sets then they overcharged you.
I like to do the work myself because I know the job is done right. I’ve seen too many mechanic rip-offs on TV where they tell you something is wrong and either don’t replace it because it’s functioning fine or they come back and tell you there are more problems which there isn’t.
All and all $500 is ok if everything was replaced.
RAY,DON’T YOU HAVE A BUDGET ITEM FOR AUTO REPAIRS ? TWO CARS SHOULD EQUAL
ABOUT $100 A MONTH IN YOUR BUDGET.
IT DOES IN MINE AND $500 FOR A TWO WHEEL BRAKE JOB IT WAY TOO MUCH, I
PAY MY GARAGE $3-400 FOR ALL 4 WHEELS
PADS,ROTORS ANDS RESURFACING IF REQUIRED. (95 BENZ 300E 87,000 MILES)