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So paying someone to do brakes on all 4 corners just costs $1k these days.

DMG said:
What’s funny about this is that they are 2 hour jobs if you have mastered the trade and have thousands of dollars in tools. Otherwise you get shit like I just fixed where someone had their dad help them put brake pads on their rusty rotors and 3 of the 4 caliper bolts came out.


In my area both brakes and plumbing are substantially cheaper, btw.
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A competent person can do either one with $100 in tools and one run through with someone else. This is what bugs me. People think think this is rocket science. It's not, and actual rocket science pays way way less.
 
I tried to be a lazy POS and get a quote from an old-school 4x4 place in town called "Jeeps R Us" to install the complete third-member I bought for our 67 Bronco.. they wanted $1200 with me supplying the gasket/hardware/third member. I would have been willing top pay someone half that to do it. In all fairness, I'm pretty sure the original owner sold the place years ago.

I'll just do it one of these days after work I guess. I remember someone walking me through it half a life time ago and it took maybe two hours :homer:.
 
I don't cut rotors any longer. I have seen too many warped rotors return warped again after cutting them. Metal holds a memory, and cutting the rotor doesn't remove the memory. If you cannot afford rotors and pads, you need to find another shop. I charge book time (Alldata) for all repairs and sell parts at the counter price of the local parts houses, once again, if you cannot afford it, ask your neighbor for help with a diy. I am sick of dealing with broke dick customers who cry poor mouth, but have a newer car than I do, and the latest generation iPhone.
 
Blugreenformula said:
I don't cut rotors any longer. I have seen too many warped rotors return warped again after cutting them. Metal holds a memory, and cutting the rotor doesn't remove the memory. If you cannot afford rotors and pads, you need to find another shop. I charge book time (Alldata) for all repairs and sell parts at the counter price of the local parts houses, once again, if you cannot afford it, ask your neighbor for help with a diy. I am sick of dealing with broke dick customers who cry poor mouth, but have a newer car than I do, and the latest generation iPhone.
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We quit cutting brake parts a few years ago both for speed of getting the job done and because the shit always comes back. I don't even turn rotors on my personal cars anymore. The only time our lathe gets used is for the shop owner's odd-ball old car shit these days.
 
Arps said:
How often are people doing rear brakes? Ive seen cars with over 100k on them and tons of meat on the rears.
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My mom's 2017 exploder needed them at 75k. Had to put new rotors on it cuz I told her rear brakes last a long time... Turns out they don't anymore and the pads wore the rotors pretty good.

Think I had $250 in just rear pads/rotors but had to get parts at auto zone. Didn't have time to get them from rockauto.
 
TrikeKid said:
We quit cutting brake parts a few years ago both for speed of getting the job done and because the shit always comes back. I don't even turn rotors on my personal cars anymore. The only time our lathe gets used is for the shop owner's odd-ball old car shit these days.
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Thats the boat I'm in. I use my brake lathe for random projects.
 
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holdmypocket said:
I tried to be a lazy POS and get a quote from an old-school 4x4 place in town called "Jeeps R Us" to install the complete third-member I bought for our 67 Bronco.. they wanted $1200 with me supplying the gasket/hardware/third member. I would have been willing top pay someone half that to do it. In all fairness, I'm pretty sure the original owner sold the place years ago.

I'll just do it one of these days after work I guess. I remember someone walking me through it half a life time ago and it took maybe two hours :homer:.
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'Jeep' shops rival stealerships on blatantly fucking people.

Since you have a hipster bronco and can't work on it yourself, might as well shoot for the moon :flipoff2:
 
TRINDU said:
'Jeep' shops rival stealerships on blatantly fucking people.

Since you have a hipster bronco and can't work on it yourself, might as well shoot for the moon :flipoff2:
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It’s my girlfriend’s Bronco, I didn’t want the damn thing :flipoff2:
 
TrikeKid said:
We quit cutting brake parts a few years ago both for speed of getting the job done and because the shit always comes back. I don't even turn rotors on my personal cars anymore. The only time our lathe gets used is for the shop owner's odd-ball old car shit these days.
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Blugreenformula said:
I don't cut rotors any longer. I have seen too many warped rotors return warped again after cutting them. Metal holds a memory, and cutting the rotor doesn't remove the memory. If you cannot afford rotors and pads, you need to find another shop. I charge book time (Alldata) for all repairs and sell parts at the counter price of the local parts houses, once again, if you cannot afford it, ask your neighbor for help with a diy. I am sick of dealing with broke dick customers who cry poor mouth, but have a newer car than I do, and the latest generation iPhone.
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People look at me like I'm nuts when I turn the rotors. I just turned my 2016 F150 rears - they only took about .005 off to true up.

Contrary to popular believe, brake shudder is not the rotor out of true, it's hard spots on the rotor changing the friction coefficient a percentage of the rotation. You usually don't have to machine far to remove them.

If you want to look like a caveman, ask your local parts house about a wiper refill (the rubber part) and they will look like you walked in from 1955. I buy that shit in bulk on Amazon and refill all of my blades. $5 to refill 4 cars worth vs $30 per loaded blade and the bonus of keeping the stock blades with the built in wind spoilers.
 
Lbhsbz said:
Few (even professional technicians) understand how to properly service brakes.

While I agree that it is very important safety system, the industry seems to have the new guy or the lube tech do the brake jobs...because they're "easy".

Brakes are one of the leading retail segments in auto parts and probably the leading DIY repair. After having specialized in brake system parts, design, and diag for the last 20 years, I'm fairly comfortable making that statement that 50% or more of the vehicles driving around out there have brakes that are not operating as they should be.

One example is Arse and his typical ignorance...

How many professionals get out a dial indicator when the rotor goes on the hub? How many professionals perform a bleed after pressing the pistons back into the calipers? How many professionals change brake hoses before they're leaking? How many professionals slap a bit of wheel bearing grease on the slide pins? How many professionals slather everything in anti-seize? How many professionals torque wheels? How many professionals use the cheapest parts they can find? How many professionals, despite never having attended any comprehensive training on brake systems, feel they know everything there is to know? How many professionals look up the procedure in SI before performing a brake job? How many professionals replace one time use fasteners when performing a brake job?

Very few.

....and the reason is, that while whatever hackfuckery they just did with whatever junk parts they decided to use certainly made the brakes perform better than they did when the neglected pile rolled in the door in the first place, I can almost guarantee that they are leaving a lot on the table as far as brake performance and longevity goes. I've had plenty of fresh brake jobs come my way that I made perform better.
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I’m happy to see that you take such passion in your work son. Next up on the chain will be chassis then engine.
 
FordFascist said:
Contrary to popular believe, brake shudder is not the rotor out of true, it's hard spots on the rotor changing the friction coefficient a percentage of the rotation. You usually don't have to machine far to remove them.
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Dial indicators and visible runout I've seen with my own eyeballs while turning rotors would tend to disagree. I don't know what it is the last few years but I see more and more rotors that are grooved all to fuck anyway, to the point you rapidly reach minimum machining thickness if you do bother trying to clean them up.
 
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jpmassey said:
A competent person can do either one with $100 in tools and one run through with someone else. This is what bugs me. People think think this is rocket science. It's not, and actual rocket science pays way way less.
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I spent the money on pex A tools and some other stuff to do my own plumbing. It can be pretty expensive. Most newer cars require a bidirectional scantool to put the parking brake in service mode or a caliper twist in tool. I have fixed a few cars lately where people removed the parking brake motor and twisted the electric parking brake in manually. The parking brake module did not like it.

Not sure why we need a parking brake module and electric motors on calipers now but that is another conversation.
 
FordFascist said:
People look at me like I'm nuts when I turn the rotors. I just turned my 2016 F150 rears - they only took about .005 off to true up.

Contrary to popular believe, brake shudder is not the rotor out of true, it's hard spots on the rotor changing the friction coefficient a percentage of the rotation. You usually don't have to machine far to remove them.

If you want to look like a caveman, ask your local parts house about a wiper refill (the rubber part) and they will look like you walked in from 1955. I buy that shit in bulk on Amazon and refill all of my blades. $5 to refill 4 cars worth vs $30 per loaded blade and the bonus of keeping the stock blades with the built in wind spoilers.
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Pedal pulsation is caused by a thickness variation 99% of the time. Shudder could be hot spots or hard spots.

I buy PIAA silicone blades on Amazon and get 4 or 5 years out of them. They are amazing.
 
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Question put of curiosity and my super limited knowledge on machining.

I have some rotors that don’t pulse or anything else when stopping. I have a traditional metal lathe and not an actual brake lathe. Is there any reason to machine that lip off the outer edge?
 
OutlawRider said:
Question put of curiosity and my super limited knowledge on machining.

I have some rotors that don’t pulse or anything else when stopping. I have a traditional metal lathe and not an actual brake lathe. Is there any reason to machine that lip off the outer edge?
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No. Maybe sand the rotors to give the new pads something to break in on.
 
TrikeKid said:
If your theory held any water we wouldn't see tv commercials for shit we all use every day. I work in an extremely successful shop that never stops advertising, there's more to it than just being good at fixing cars
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Everywhere I've ever lived the shops that do the best work for fair prices don't advertise a bit.

Not saying your shop is shit, but "extremely successful" doesn't necessarily mean "good".
 
DMG said:
I spent the money on pex A tools and some other stuff to do my own plumbing. It can be pretty expensive. Most newer cars require a bidirectional scantool to put the parking brake in service mode or a caliper twist in tool. I have fixed a few cars lately where people removed the parking brake motor and twisted the electric parking brake in manually. The parking brake module did not like it.

Not sure why we need a parking brake module and electric motors on calipers now but that is another conversation.
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Also some newer cars require you to clear the data and reset pad life monitors as well as recalibrate the parking brake. But hey, I'm glad everyone compares it to the days when you just pried the caliper piston in with your daddies hand me craftsman screwdriver.
 
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TrikeKid said:
Dial indicators and visible runout I've seen with my own eyeballs while turning rotors would tend to disagree. I don't know what it is the last few years but I see more and more rotors that are grooved all to fuck anyway, to the point you rapidly reach minimum machining thickness if you do bother trying to clean them up.
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Most vehicles have floating calipers that move along with the runout that you see. It’s not uncommon to see a caliper move .005-.010” while the wheel is spinning and the driver will never notice a thing.
 
Takotruckin said:
Most vehicles have floating calipers that move along with the runout that you see. It’s not uncommon to see a caliper move .005-.010” while the wheel is spinning and the driver will never notice a thing.
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Yes they will, just not initially. That's why most max runout specs called out in SI are under .002"
 
It wasn't on my dime, but my Range Rover Sport had rear brakes done at the dealer at the beginning of the year and the invoice was $1600 for labor, rotors, pads and wear sensors
 
Toreadorranger said:
It wasn't on my dime, but my Range Rover Sport had rear brakes done at the dealer at the beginning of the year and the invoice was $1600 for labor, rotors, pads and wear sensors
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That is about 4x what I charged my customer with a RR sport. Fuck.
 
Toreadorranger said:
It wasn't on my dime, but my Range Rover Sport had rear brakes done at the dealer at the beginning of the year and the invoice was $1600 for labor, rotors, pads and wear sensors
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Have the fronts been done? The F-Pace SVR seems to use similar brakes and are something like $4500 for front and rear 😬. And they are only good for about 20k miles.
 
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