was i ripped off by my mechanic on a break job?

Question

i brought my car in to get rear pads and rotors and caliper sliders the owner of the garage quoted me at $280 $45 for pads , $90 for rotors and $40 for sliders plus 64.95 for 1 hrs labour half way through the mechanic working on it was having a hard time with 1 caliper piston to get it to go back in so the owner says you might need new calipers and calls his parts store to see if he can get them they have none in stock so he says to get them to work he'll have to charge me an extra hrs labour and that will save me $180 per caliper for new ones. 20 mins later the mechanics got the caliper back on and the other one gave him no problem at all, and he still charged me the extra hr the total bill came to $354 with tax .
even though the whole job took over 2 hrs was it wrong for the mechanic to do this since he told me 1 hrs labour at the beginning
and was i over charged for the sliders and rotors (the rotors are standard grade) any advice would be helpful this is on a 93 accord

Answer 1

no not really. its called a ESTIMATE. its made assuming that your parts are in good working order, and workable. if halfway through the job, your parts become problematic due to rust,etc... thats how it is. expect to pay for time. when you go to work, and something out of your control makes a job take longer than it should, does that mean you shouldnt get paid?

Answer 2

The price was fair, and they were honest. You need to understand how brakes work. They recommended new rotors due to your old ones being out of specs. Out of spec rotors will prematurely wear your front brakes and you will be doing front brakes again. While they were doing your brakes, they found that you had a piston sticking on one of your calipers. This is due to heating and cooling of the caliper and piston, this is normal wear and tear on any vehicle, and instead of them replacing them with new ones, they rebuilt the one that was bad, sounds like the other was in good working order, and hopefully they lubricated the slides that the caliper slides on. And hopefully they checked the front brakes lines to see if they had any crackes in them. If they are starting to or already cracked, they need to be replaced also, before you spring a brake fluid leak. You also need to keep in mind, they had to bleed the brake system to get any air out of the lines so you can have a stronger pedal.

If they replaced the rear shoes, I hope they checked to see if the rear wheel cylinders were leaking or not. If they are leaking, the shoes they just put on, can get brake fluid on them and start to stick, causing rear wheel lockup, not good. To do rear brakes is a good thing if they are needed, the rear brakes help compensate for the stopping power of the front brakes. And by helping compensate for the stopping power of the front brakes, they help in keeping the front brakes from heating up and prematurely wearing them out. The hourly labor charge is pretty cheap, if you went to the dealer they run about $100 an hour for labor. And a standard front brake job without replacing the rotors or a rebuild runs about $160 - $200 easily. If the job was done correctly, they gave you a killer deal.

Answer 3

you should have questioned the bill before you paid it. sometimes with some of these bill mechanics use they update them in the computer as they go along. it could be that the mechanic was assuming that both calipers would need attention.

it would appear thou that he charged you accuratly thou, since he only charged you to fix the one caliper

look at what the mechanic done right

gave you an estimate

informed you of other mechanical problems & a money saving alternative (refurbish old calipers)

was honest in telling you that the other caliper gave him no problem instead of telling you that he did something to that one too

all mecahnics add money to part prices this is how they make a part of their money. you get them at retail + upcharge.

9 times out of 10 it is much cheaper then a dealer upcharge unless they get them from the dealer & add their upcharge

the real money you save versus going to the dealer is that a dealer would have just replaced both calipers with new ones (they don't try to get things to work, they just replace them)
dealer part prices & dealer labor

if you don't think you got a good deal call the dealer tell them what you had done but tell them you would have needed a new caliper (dealer would just say it needs to be replaced) if the price is higher forget it & move on.... if it is higher you got ripped off & maybe you should go to the dealer from now on

thanks,
SS

Answer 4

Naw, you didn't get hosed. for new disks, you could have got5 away cheaper,, but estimating 1h labor was an under estimate, that's about a 1.5h job. the labor of 65 an hour is a bargain, most shops will charge starting out at 80 bucks. If it will make you feel better, I just did the entire brakes on a 73 vette. rotors/calipers/pads/lines(rubber) 700 in parts alone, work took about 9 hours.

Answer 5

I went to the dentist with a cracked tooth.
Quote was $750.00 for a crown, and $850 for the root canal at another office. Had all the work done and three monyhs later had to have tooth extracted.
I paid $250 for the extraction!

You paid a professional for their time. You expect to be paid in your line of work, and the shop owner and mechanic deserve to be paid for what they do. When I estimate a job, I will always state on a written estimate, This is an estimate only, price may vary due to work needed to repair this condition.

Answer 6

purely like the others reported run away. A gasket is low value and perchance a pair of hours hard paintings being beneficiant. The O2 sensor might desire to run around $a hundred with a small quantity of hard paintings, perchance an hour or 2 tops. Secondly Valve conceal gaskets leaking are actually not a protection or emissions standards, a minimum of not in my state. restoration the O2 sensor and re-attempt.

Answer 7

Actually that is about right for what you had done. Unfortunatly, sometimes crap happens when you get into a repair job. At least now you know you have good brakes and should not have any trouble for a long time with your brakes.

Answer 8

I do brake jobs at my shop every day. The total considering the amount of work they did was stupid dirt cheap. And you want to ***** about it?

The price was way mroe than fair. Get over it.

Answer 9

I work at a dealer and this is a common situation. I don't think you got ripped off. The price is fair for the amount of work done.

Answer 10

It sounds like a fair price for what you had done, they use book rates, not actual time. Almost all garages do.