Dealer service rep tried to pull a fast one.

914Driver wrote: Mail that photo and story to the Service Manager and/or Owner. C'ya.

I will send them the photo if I feel that I need to. I'm also backing off on telling them what I do and who I work for. I don't want special treatment just because I can make a few phone calls or drum up some serious hell for them. Honestly I want to help them fix a problem. 9 out of 10 times they may have sold that service and nobody would have been the wiser, but it only takes getting busted once to make it on Facebook, GRM, Reddit or any other social media site. I don't have a vendetta, I just want our industry to be a little nicer.

Bobzilla wrote: I still say there was more on that quote than just front brake pads and rotors.

It was for brakes all the way around. So four rotors, pads, fluids, and maybe they threw in the calipers for good measure. My wife has no idea what that should cost, so maybe they were betting she'd bite.

well then that makes more sense. Depending on the model (since you never said) that would be 5-600 in parts and 4 hours labor. so the price is pretty much standard for dealer serviced brakes.

I don't know if we were in the minority or not (Nissan dealer), but we charged a flat $199/axle, i.e. both front or both rear, for brakes. This included new pads, resurface of rotors (on-car or floor lathe at techs discretion), and clean/adjust/lube of moving parts. Our door rate was $99/hour, but we had a labor/parts matrix figured where the tech still got their 2 hours, the parts still got their ~200% mark-up & we still had competitive pricing considering we were using OEM Nissan pads.

Now if a rotor needed replaced, we only sold them in pairs, and they were typically $99 a piece, no additional labor. So that $200 brake job/axle could become $400.

If we did a brake flush it was ~$99 & something like 0.7 hours.

So new pads/rotors all around & a brake flush would run you $900. Rarely did I have a customer that needed all at once, and we didn't have to replace many rotors, if we did it was usually due to a stuck caliper, and that was a whole other bag of worms to explain/sale to the customer.

• Lee

Wait..... 200% markup? WTF? WE don't even get HALF that from Honda. Holy hell. I could make fat bank for a Nissan dealer!

Bobzilla wrote: well then that makes more sense. Depending on the model (since you never said) that would be 5-600 in parts and 4 hours labor. so the price is pretty much standard for dealer serviced brakes.

Sorry, it is a 2010 Santa Fe GLS 2WD 4-cylinder. Pretty basic car really. I know the parts will be a bit more expensive for the crossover SUV, and really I thought the price estimate was about normal for a dealership doing all four corners with new parts. Still, those pads have a good bit of life left in them.

You guys kill me. The industry standard for brake pad replacement is when the friction material is the same thickness as the backing plate. There’s a few reasons for this, mainly because at that point the friction material will tend to overheat quickly. When that happens the friction material tends to break away from the backing plate, or it will cleave chunks off. Those pads are thinner than the backing plate. I’d recommend replacement as well. You can say that they still have enough material on them. Well, that's not our call. We have no idea how you drive. That amount of friction material could last the little old lady another year, but the guy that autocrosses or drives like an idiot may be metal-to-metal in a week. We follow the industry standard. The rears are thicker (the OP says) but we can’t see how much. I don’t know what all is included in that thousand dollars, but I bet it’s a heckuva lot more than the fabled ‘I can do that in my garage with pliers and a beer in an hour per axle’ people always throw around on forums. In that hour are you pulling the slides/pins out to clean and lube them? Naturally you are. Are you taking a ‘cookie’ to the hubs before reinstalling the rotors, with a little anti-seize to prevent them from getting stuck in the future? Of course. Are you inspecting every inch of brake line and hose while you’re under there? Yes, even though you can’t get under there in your garage.
I can’t comment on the price because it’s very regional. What they’d charge in Manhattan is way different than what they’d charge in Boise Idaho. Most techs I know have a list of customer names or license plate numbers in our box. Those are the DBs that piss and moan and whine to the service manager every time I do my job and recommend work that NEEDS to be done. When your car comes in, I will take my time getting to it, and I won’t look at a single thing that’s not on the work order. If I’m doing a recall on the TPS and notice the throttle body is nasty, I’m not even going to wipe the heavy crap from the butterfly blade unless it’s called out in the recall. We routinely do extra stuff that’s not on the repair order because it’s just what we do, we fix stuff. For DBs that try to get me in hot water for RECOMMENDING things to be done, we just kinda let you to your own (usually subpar) skills and abilities.
Another thing to understand. The tech typically writes only part of the estimate. Parts and labor. The parts are dictated by the dealership, the labor is dictated by an industry standard book. The service writer starts tacking on things like “misc. supplies” and literally plopping 10% or more on top of it all because he’s working on commission. The tech is working by the job.
Sorry, I just get so sick and tired of people here, and other places whine about how mechanics are crooks and how they can to the job better in less time. Then you see threads asking how to do this or that, from stripped lug nuts to odd electrical gremlins. But the tech that handles these day in and day out are meatheads that just try to victimize women. Yeah, like we even see the customer!

bigdaddylee82 wrote: Now if a rotor needed replaced, we only sold them in pairs, - Lee

YOU CROOKS! You see a woman drop a car off at the dealer and force her to buy two rotors? How dare you!?

I do all those things you mentioned Dr.boost and I don't even have a garage, just a gravel parking lot. But I'm also not the average Joe that would have someone else do maintenance on my cars. FWIW I wouldn't touch those pads until they get to about half that thickness. Of course I inspect all that stuff about every 4000 miles.

I just looked it up. Standard front pad thickness is 10.5 mm. I'm trying to find the service replacement specs now.

4mm is the spec for mentioning replacement, 3mm is recommended replacement. I can't really comment without seeing the inboard pads. pretty common for a tech to see pads not wearing evenly and recommend replacement while lubricating the slides to get everything moving freely. Stuck slides could easily have the inboard pads @ 0mm and the outers @8mm. Not saying that a dealer wouldnt berk you, just saying look the inboard pads and slides over carefully.

carbon wrote: 4mm is the spec for mentioning replacement, 3mm is recommended replacement. I can't really comment without seeing the inboard pads. pretty common for a tech to see pads not wearing evenly and recommend replacement while lubricating the slides to get everything moving freely. Stuck slides could easily have the inboard pads @ 0mm and the outers @8mm. Not saying that a dealer wouldnt berk you, just saying look the inboard pads and slides over carefully.

Inboard pads are wearing the same as the outboard, I just didn't take a picture of them.

I sell service for a living all day every day and a tech who wants me to sell brakes like that will get a very strong hint the first time that the ol' Curmudgeon will overrule. Second time it's straight out 'nope I'm not selling that, they better better be down to around 2-3mm'. Third time I grab the service manager and we have a three corner meeting in the stall with the vehicle in question.

I's permissible to advise the owner that the brakes are, say, 50% worn and we will keep an eye on it for them each time they get their vehicle serviced.

DrBoost wrote: To clarify, if I saw pads like that, the way I state it to a customer is "you need to start thinking about replacement...." but I only see customer when it's a side job. The service writer will say it how he says it. We have no idea how it was pitched to your wife. Of course, on an internet forum, it was pitched in the worst possible way and the tech/service writer is a crook Either way, at this point, when your car is in for warranty work, don't expect the tech to reconnect a vacuum line that he notices is knocked off. It'll be made clear to him by his service manager that you don't want his professional eye or opinion. So glad I'm out of that business.

Would you really? It looks like there are at least 10k miles left on those pads, without knowing how they wear on that vehicle or how good the pads themselves are. I could be very wrong, but I personally will run pads with 1/4 or less of what there is there.

slefain wrote: I just looked it up. Standard front pad thickness is 10.5 mm. I'm trying to find the service replacement specs now.

hmaservice.com

mtn wrote:

DrBoost wrote: To clarify, if I saw pads like that, the way I state it to a customer is "you need to start thinking about replacement...." but I only see customer when it's a side job. The service writer will say it how he says it. We have no idea how it was pitched to your wife. Of course, on an internet forum, it was pitched in the worst possible way and the tech/service writer is a crook Either way, at this point, when your car is in for warranty work, don't expect the tech to reconnect a vacuum line that he notices is knocked off. It'll be made clear to him by his service manager that you don't want his professional eye or opinion. So glad I'm out of that business.

Would you really? It looks like there is at least 10k miles left on those pads, without knowing how they wear on that vehicle or how good the pads themselves are.

Yup. It's time to start thinking about replacement. There's either 10K miles, or 100 miles. I don't know. If I don't replace them, and you go metal-to-metal, you'll post on GRM how I'm a moron for not noticing your worn out pads. If you say that you drive mostly highway miles, or you downshift as much as possible, I'll still tell you I have no idea how many miles you have left, but that driving style will allow these to last longer. You have to understand, from the tech's perspective, most customers are totally uneducated. I can't tell you how many times a customer asked me how many miles are left on pads, or plugs, or a muffler. Or "how'd my oil look?". We must assume you know next to nothing about your car, and that you are at least an average driver.
All that being said, did you notice "you need to start thinking about...?" I was always taught when that the friction material is the same thickness as the backing plate, blah blah blah. I'm pretty sure it's one of the questions on the ASE certification test. Again, with most customers it's a lose/lose situation. We're either crooks or a dumb grease monkey.

DrBoost wrote: You guys kill me. The industry standard for brake pad replacement is when the friction material is the same thickness as the backing plate. There’s a few reasons for this, mainly because at that point the friction material will tend to overheat quickly. When that happens the friction material tends to break away from the backing plate, or it will cleave chunks off. Those pads are thinner than the backing plate. I’d recommend replacement as well. You can say that they still have enough material on them. Well, that's not our call. We have no idea how you drive. That amount of friction material could last the little old lady another year, but the guy that autocrosses or drives like an idiot may be metal-to-metal in a week. We follow the industry standard. The rears are thicker (the OP says) but we can’t see how much. I don’t know what all is included in that thousand dollars, but I bet it’s a heckuva lot more than the fabled ‘I can do that in my garage with pliers and a beer in an hour per axle’ people always throw around on forums. In that hour are you pulling the slides/pins out to clean and lube them? Naturally you are. Are you taking a ‘cookie’ to the hubs before reinstalling the rotors, with a little anti-seize to prevent them from getting stuck in the future? Of course. Are you inspecting every inch of brake line and hose while you’re under there? Yes, even though you can’t get under there in your garage. I can’t comment on the price because it’s very regional. What they’d charge in Manhattan is way different than what they’d charge in Boise Idaho. Most techs I know have a list of customer names or license plate numbers in our box. Those are the DBs that piss and moan and whine to the service manager every time I do my job and recommend work that NEEDS to be done. When your car comes in, I will take my time getting to it, and I won’t look at a single thing that’s not on the work order. If I’m doing a recall on the TPS and notice the throttle body is nasty, I’m not even going to wipe the heavy crap from the butterfly blade unless it’s called out in the recall. We routinely do extra stuff that’s not on the repair order because it’s just what we do, we fix stuff. For DBs that try to get me in hot water for RECOMMENDING things to be done, we just kinda let you to your own (usually subpar) skills and abilities. Another thing to understand. The tech typically writes only part of the estimate. Parts and labor. The parts are dictated by the dealership, the labor is dictated by an industry standard book. The service writer starts tacking on things like “misc. supplies” and literally plopping 10% or more on top of it all because he’s working on commission. The tech is working by the job. Sorry, I just get so sick and tired of people here, and other places whine about how mechanics are crooks and how they can to the job better in less time. Then you see threads asking how to do this or that, from stripped lug nuts to odd electrical gremlins. But the tech that handles these day in and day out are meatheads that just try to victimize women. Yeah, like we even see the customer!

Well said. I too get tired of hearing about the "stealerships" and how "Joe Blow can do it better faster everytime". Of course, Joe Blow also doesn't have a huge building with utilities, employees and equipment to pay for, and when something he berkeleys up leaves you stranded, you'll be lucky to find him again.

DrBoost wrote: You guys kill me. The industry standard for brake pad replacement is when the friction material is the same thickness as the backing plate.

That's interesting. I never checked, but are the backing plates on my Dodge Ram Diesel the same thickness as those on the MINI? Or is that the point, that a thicker backing plate would dictate a different tolerance for replacement? If the backing plates are all the same, are the starting thicknesses of the pads the same?

Not being argumentative, just truly curious as I hadn't heard of that as a standard before, though there also isn't a reason I would have.

DrBoost wrote: I'm pretty sure it's one of the questions on the ASE certification test.

I may be wrong but I certainly don't remember that being the case when I took my tests. Of course that was 16 years ago.

FWIW: ever look at the wear indicator on a brake pad?

That's the point where the factory engineers decided the pad was very nearly toast. The indicator screeches to tell Mr/Mrs Maytag Driver it's time to replace them and you can bet they built in a margin of error.

Doesn't look near as thick as the friction material in the OP's pic, does it?

Jeez what a crap storm. I'm sorry that mechanics get a bad rap, me possibly more than anyone. I grew up in a shop, my Dad owned six shops at one point. I know the business quite well. I'm trying to help this place out by questioning their recommendation to replace the brake pads at what I consider a premature point. If they have an overzealous employee trying to oversell then the "crook mechanic" image is perpetuated. From their description of the pad thickness there should only be 1-2mm of material left, where there is more than likely 4-5mm.

I'm only chasing this down because I got screwed by our local VW dealer who I busted for not completing services I had requested and paid for. Most people would never crawl under their car after a repair but I did, and I found that I'd been taken for a ride.

I just want the dealer service team to know that yes, there are some people out there who do pay attention and do know what is going on.

If all the pads are as thick as in OP's picture, then the car must ship with the pads 50% worn. Those are healthy pads with many thousands of miles left.

Basil Exposition wrote:

DrBoost wrote: You guys kill me. The industry standard for brake pad replacement is when the friction material is the same thickness as the backing plate.

That's interesting. I never checked, but are the backing plates on my Dodge Ram Diesel the same thickness as those on the MINI? Or is that the point, that a thicker backing plate would dictate a different tolerance for replacement? If the backing plates are all the same, are the starting thicknesses of the pads the same? Not being argumentative, just truly curious as I hadn't heard of that as a standard before, though there also isn't a reason I would have.

I think the thought process here is, heavy duty vehicles have heavier backing plates. They will usually start with proportionately more friction material. If you don't have a reliable spec (I've seen a swing of 4 MM from the experts here) you use the rule of thumb, backing plate thickness as your spec since, in my day all data didn't exist. That's what I've always been told, and what I've always used. Like I said, I tell the customer that they should start thinking about it, not 'you need to do it now or else' that seems to be purpetrated in the effort to vilify technicians. If there's a wear sensor, whether mechanical or electronic, the wear sensor/indicator is what you'd use as your 'spec'. Then again, if you are 2 mm above the sensor/indicator and two days later the light comes on or it starts squealing, the tech is a buggar-eating-moron for not noticing it and bringing it to your attention (not you personally). Technicians have come to expect that every customer knows more than them. We do love when they bring us a car they started to fix and don't know what to do. We're so dumb, we double the normal book time as a start. I suppose I just fanned the flames there

dculberson wrote: If all the pads are as thick as in OP's picture, then the car must ship with the pads 50% worn. Those are healthy pads with many thousands of miles left.

Sorry, stoopid statement. If I tell the customer they have X,XXX miles left and they experience a failure, guess who's going to court? Guess who's going to pay for life? Yup, the guy dumb enough to essentially guarantee how many miles you can drive with no problems. The only issue I see (but we have only a very small slice of the story) with the original repair recommendation is that the tech gave a percentage. I don't know how much material it had. But lots of guys do that.

In reply to DrBoost:

Thanks, and while we are on (or off) the subject, my Dodge Ram pads have a bevel on both the leading and trailing edges. They've also got the fingernail wear indicators, so I don't think the bevels are wear indicators. What are the purpose of those? Perhaps to prevent the edges cracking under heat?