new brakes/rotors?

Handling, suspension, and brake tuning discussions
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daninboulder
Posts: 14
Joined: Wed Feb 15, 2012 12:31 am

new brakes/rotors?

Post by daninboulder »

OK, this seems odd. I bought a 2005 Vibe with 79k 2.5 years ago. regular maintenance every 5k. I tend to use coupons. I went to a place 5k ago (105k on odo) and they said car in great shape, brake pads half worn. I went back to same place 5k later and they called and said "oh man your brakes and rotors are SHOT and will cost....".

I was also told rear brakes needed adjusting and cleaning. So I said fine but hold off on the front stuff. When I picked up the car, I looked at the inspection list and they have 3 columns, green yellow and red. All was green and maybe 4 items were yellow, no red. Even the cashier kinda looked at me like it was odd...

I have heard this same script from every oil change type place ever, esp. the "rear cleaning and adjustment".

Is it just that they had me in their system and decided they needed to make some cash this time? I don't begrudge that, as they must be losing money by offering big discount on oil change, rotate, etc.

That being said, I know at some point I need new brakes rotors, fine. Oh, and first time they said car in great shape, this time they quoted $1550 in needed repairs. After 5 thousand miles of normal and highway driving?!?

Sorry for long post, love the site. I can't find a maintenance schedule for my vibe that says when to recommend replacing brakes/rotors/struts etc. thanks in advance.
Salsa Guy
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Joined: Thu Oct 07, 2010 10:46 pm
Location: Greater Tulsa Area

Re: new brakes/rotors?

Post by Salsa Guy »

Rotors and Brakes are wear items and it all depends on the driving so there are not on a scheduled maintenance. You could have car a with 150K highway miles and the brakes and rotors could be still good. You could have the same car with 50K city miles and it would need new brakes. The only way to check rotors and drums is with a caliper and measure the thickness. It's good practice to have them turned when you get the brakes replaced. But normally you can get only 2 maybe 3 turns out of any Rotor or drum. To say the rotors are shot and the brakes have never been replaced leads me to be very leery of the shop that's telling me that.

I do all my brake work, oil changes on my cars and some minor repairs. I have a couple of trusted mechanics that do the major items. Re-call and warranty work is all done by the stealership.
05 Matrix XR 4WD and 03 Vibe GT
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trb
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Joined: Thu May 08, 2008 4:06 am
Location: Houston, TX

Re: new brakes/rotors?

Post by trb »

Yes, most of those places that offer cheap coupons make up for it with other "necessary services". I serously doubt you needed a full brake job after only 5K miles, unless they did not look at it correctly last time. Were the brakes serviced before you bought it? I changed my son's front pads at about 60K on his 06 and did them on my former 10 GT at about 65K. My local Firestone, where I bought the tires, did say they were low, and I had them show me how they looked. I've done brakes probably 10+ times, so I know how new pads look vs pads that are getting close to being shot. As for the rears, usually there is a self adjuster included in the brakes that works to keep the rears adjusted properly. If you have to pull the parking brake handle all the way up for it to hold the car in place, then I could see that it needed an adjustment and possibly brake shoe/pad replacement.

There really is no "maintenance schedule" for wear items like brakes/rotors/shocks/struts/etc. because every car and driver is different. One driver might ride the brakes and need to replace them every 40K miles, while others might drive highway and not need it in over 100K miles. You just have to look at them on every service visit and decide when they are down enough to warrant replacement. Most cars have wear indicators on the front brakes that chirp when they are getting to the point of replacement, and stop chirping when you apply the brakes. This is just before they wear out and cut into the rotors in maybe a few more thousand miles of use.
Shocks & struts you bounce the corner and if it bounces more than up and down, that shock/strut is weak. Also if you notice abnormal tire wear that could be from shocks/struts.

One thing I would also do is look up the parts cost online to see what a reference price should be. Say brake pads are $40 and rotors are $40 each so that is $120 in parts. I don't replace rotors unless they are warped badly, causing vibrations while braking, and if they can not be turned (cut down) to take care of the warping. Turning rotors costs about $10-15 each or so, vs $40-60 for new. A front brake job with pads, rotors and labor should be in the $200-250 range based on those prices. Rears should be in the same range. The shops usually do mark up parts a bit, but you don't want to pay $600 for a front brake job unless it included more parts and services such as new calipers, full system flush, etc.

Unless the car is scraping the brakes metal on metal, it is usually better to take a few days and get a second opinion on it. This is where having a trusted shop is useful, eventhough it might cost more for oil changes, they won't likely try and get you to spend money on services that are not required like the cheap oil change places do.

Good luck on it and certainly come back with questions!
Thomas
the "Mustang Guy"
1987 5.0 LX Mustang
2016 Mustang GT - current daily
2004 Satellite Vibe &
2009 Red Vibe GT -twin's cars
2003 Neptune Vibe GT - prior daily
2010 Red Vibe GT - RIP 6/16/14
2006 Platinum Vibe - son's car
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