How much? I’ve not been charged that much from a MB dealer for discs + pads + service. Now i take it indy it costs a fraction.

I had rear pads and discs changed on my Avensis in Feb cost £167.

Independent not main dealer. I can imagine if it was main dealer I could have easily added another £100-120.

http://www.mtecbrakes.co.uk/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=7_21_533

pagid pads and discs front and back for £156 + £50 to have them fitted. was going to do it myself but thought for £50 it was worth getting someone else to do it. thats on an octavia vrs. main dealer wanted a lot more, as did the local skoda specialist.

I just broke the lips off my old discs. Cast iron I think, the edges came off easily, chipped round them and fitted new pads. £40 I think ) Had to buy a new allen key for the callipers, that added a couple of £.

I’ve worked for Audi and independants, it comes down to the quality of the end result. The main dealer might feel that to offer a final result that meets their standards the discs need changing, garages that work to different standards might not. People always agree with the mechanic who seems to be saving them money, dosnt mean he is right.

The crunch point is will the new pads last longer than the partly worn discs? If not you risk a very dangerous failure.

At the end of the day its your car and you are responsible for its upkeep, any work they recommend is simple advice and should be treated as such. If you disagree just say no.

This is why I do all work myself. Mrs took booked hers into kwik fit for new tyres. I went ballistic as they are the original con men. Weirdly enough they came through saying the car needed new brake discs and pads all round and they could do it there and then for 400.

They got a bit upset when I said bugger off does it……I fitted new discs and pads all round a fortnight ago………

My old V70 went in for its first service requiring an oil & filter change. It came back unvaleted, with extra dirt on the interior for the princely sum of £640. Then a set of front tyres cost £420 after just 11,000 miles. Despite my insistence on OEM parts they fitted some cheap shite which ruined the handling.

The Volvo was a great car other than catastrophic fuel economy and appalling dealer support. It went shortly after that experience.

Replaced it with a 5 series which has cost half that amount in maintenance over 50,000 miles. And does an extra 12mpg.

Yet the 5 series is regarded as ‘expensive’. It costs less than a posh Golf to run….

Turns off hob and empties saucepan. Dissapointed.

best leave the extractor running for a while, parkesie – boiling piss leaves a bit of a pong

You don’t usually have to take the wheels off to assess disc and pad wear, if that’s what you’re getting at.

On a car with inboard discs you may be right, or perhaps some old RWD car with massive offset wheels. No way you can see the pad material on the vast majority of cars.

Just done our front discs and pads, £110, main dealer parts too.

I should just add, discs should actually be changed or resurfaced at every pad change for optimum braking from the offset. Using a new pad on a (even microscopically) grooved disc face will overheat areas of the pad and render it pretty much useless. That said, I usually just do pads, and discs when below the allowed thickness.

Sometimes I start thinking about chopping my company car in and taking the cash, so I can get something a little more interesting than a Passat.

But then I read this sort of shite that some people have to put up with and I realise how lucky I really am.

Kryton57 – Member

This really annoys me. I take the car in for a service, knowing it needs new pads and the bloke calls me and says casually “the disks are lipped mate, I can change them all but that’ll be £740 all in please”.

Sounds like you have been rip off … 😯

I had 2 new front discs, 2 new brake pads, two new tires (Event cheapo) and one front ABS sensor (bleeding expensive piece of shite), all new semi-synthetic engine oil, new automatic gear oil, new wipers, full service whatever that is … all for approx. £680 including labour cost.

im not surprised you piss is boiling, your being **** in the arse. new disks and pads all round on my mercedes sprinter was £88.16 for parts and £50 labour in my local garage.

I took my car in to the main dealer for it’s third year service to keep the warranty valid. I received a phone call telling me the pads needed changing as they are 80% worn and that would be two hundred pounds plus VAT please. My response was that the car has done 29,000 miles, so there is still a good 7 thou miles left in them thank you.

I’ll get an independent price in the new year.

Worked in a garage for a few years, it was common practice to replace perfectly good parts and inflate bills. Especially easy to replace stuff such as brake discs and shock absorbers.

Kevj, am I wrong in saying that it is now illegal for car companies to insist on main dealers stamps to keep warranty? Pretty sure the OFT put paid to it around 2007.

Cheers Nobeer, I honestly didn’t know that as this is my first ‘nice’ car having drove bangers for years!

In that case, I’m not sure if the dealer stamp will hold any additional resale value?

Last time I used a Ford dealer for servicing they were telling everyone that Ford recommended annual brake fluid replacement. The women in front of me at the service desk fell for it straight away when the word safety was mentioned!

I took my car in to the main dealer for it’s third year service to keep the warranty valid. I received a phone call telling me the pads needed changing as they are 80% worn and that would be two hundred pounds plus VAT please. My response was that the car has done 29,000 miles, so there is still a good 7 thou miles left in them thank you.

And this is why I only trust receipts when buying a used car, a stamp in the book is pointless – and so is rely on the owner to do the right thing.

By the time you come to replace the pads, you’ll be needing new discs – whereas if you’d have had the pads changed you wouldn’t need to.

Took my berlingo in for its second service and they tried to sell me a brake fluid change and a set of tyres because winter was coming and having 3mm of tread would be dangerous. Brake fluid is also recommend because it’s hygroscopic. (van is 2 years old with 17k on it) so to be safe you should change it.

Once took my ex-girlfriends car to kwikfit to get the tracking done, they claimed all of the tyres were exactly on the legal limit and should be changed. “Wow, that seems pretty unlikely that all the tyres are exactly on the illegal limit” lad at the desk immediately made a face that suggested the game was up.

Ford a notorious for being a bunch of crooks when it comes to this. Just always ensure you never tick the box authorising them to do any work they want, always write somewhere on the service sheet, consult me before any additional work is conducted. Used this to get them to remove discs of a car before.

but by that logic, you’d have needed the new disks at that point anyway, so it’s all a little irrelevant?

Just to point out, the OP’s piss must have boiled dry by now, it’s been going on for 2 months……

Can someone explain what happened here?

We went from a month old thread to someone taking the pan off the boil and then conversation picked up where it left off.

Did moderation take place?

My car’s done 65K miles (owned by me from new) and still with original pads/discs 😯

At my last ever visit to a Ford dealership they tried to sell me a diesel system flush, new brake fluid, two new tyres and new disks and pads all round. The car was in for a 30K service!

Kevj, am I wrong in saying that it is now illegal for car companies to insist on main dealers stamps to keep warranty? Pretty sure the OFT put paid to it around 2007.

Thats correct although they do insist on using genuine manufacturers parts.
My car goes to an independent garage about 100m from the main dealer! 3 services so far at about 60% of the main dealer price. Warranty intact.

My car’s done 65K miles (owned by me from new) and still with original pads/discs

Engine braking will wreck your clutch, cost you more to replace that than some pads 8)

allthepies – Member
My car’s done 65K miles (owned by me from new) and still with original pads/discs

Mine had done 101500 on the original discs and just the second pair of pads until 3 weeks ago when a pad with plenty of material failed and took a chunk out of the disc.

On a similar note – how come every time my Ford dealer tells me I need new pads do they insist I need new discs too, whereas when I then drive down to my local trusted garage, they have a look and just say the pads need replaced…
Don’t trust them as far as I can throw them….

This ^^. It’s happened way to many times to me and it’s not just main dealers. A good local independent will save you a fortune . Prime example is my partners car. She was quoted £260 and £320 for heater/exhaust problem (her usual garage and one near her work) – ‘my’ garage did it all for £265 which included a full service with oil and brake fluid change AND a new tyre!

Engine braking will wreck your clutch,

Borrox. Don’t just regurgitate crap out of some BMW drivers magazine.

Engine braking wrecking your clutch…. Poor clutch control will wreck your clutch….

I did 160k in my work transit connect and it was still on its original clutch, I’d expect at least 200k from one driven properly.

As for garages trying it on, they didn’t when we had our car serviced.

They did overfill the oil, as the previous two dealers did every time it was serviced…. The first time I kicked up a fuss, had it independently verified, the car returned on a low loader and had them redo it. Since it happened the second and third time I stopped caring, if it breaks then it’s under manufacturer warranty and serviced on time at the main dealer so they can fix it.

Changed the rear discs and pads on my mazda 323.
Unipart pads £30
Pagid Discs £35
Time for me to fit – 1hr (Garage labour rates, about £80?)

To properly check the discs you need to measure the thickness, and run out (micrometer for the thickness, dial test indicator for the run out / truth) lips can just mean that some corrosion has built up where the pad doesn’t sweep the rust off.
Certainly to do that, the wheels would need to be off. You don’t need to remove the caliper and discs to do it.

Main dealers and franchises try this shit all the time (I have a friend who is a service manager for Arnold Shark so I’ve heard the stories)

Brakes are easy to replace and sound important to the civvies. Tyres are the same but checking your tyres is relatively straight forward so its hard for a garage to really take the piss with them, some still try mind you.
Other great wheezes are “Fuel Treatments”

To be fair they aren’t normally replacing parts that won’t need replaced at some point so they aren’t conning people, taking the piss for sure but not being genuinely deceptive.

Still the most annoying one I had recently was £55 to change my coolant because the “anti-freeze content was low”

Brakes are easy to replace

Oh how I wish that were true for Transits, the discs have to be pressed off the hubs and are a complete bastard to do, apparently.

And this is why I only trust receipts when buying a used car, a stamp in the book is pointless – and so is rely on the owner to do the right thing.

Whilst that may be your oppinion, theres nothing more to stop the garage issuing a recipt and not doing the work, than there is stamping the book. In the last 3 years i’ve saved ~£400 in service bills, by the time I sell it in another 3 years or so thats a lot of haggle room, especaly as it’ll probably only be worth about £800! And with the time and money saved I can do services more frequently.

To properly check the discs you need to measure the thickness, and run out (micrometer for the thickness, dial test indicator for the run out / truth) lips can just mean that some corrosion has built up where the pad doesn’t sweep the rust off.
Certainly to do that, the wheels would need to be off. You don’t need to remove the caliper and discs to do it.

I can get a micrometer round my discs with the wheel on, and see the pad well enough through the wheel to guess it’s wear within +/-10%, and remember, like tyres they should be replaced with 1-2mm of material left, not when the copper rivet (do they still have those to make them squeel when worn?) shows through the pad! So 70% is probably about half the original thickness.

Still the most annoying one I had recently was £55 to change my coolant because the “anti-freeze content was low”

Sounds about right, <30min (at a cheep £60/Hour) and a bottle of coolant is £20-£30. It does degrade/evaporate over time, and the corosion inhibitors lose their effectiveness.