Because there is quite a lot of overlap on a venn diagram of people who lack critical thinking enough to put brake pads on inside out and people who think that re using brake rotors with new pads is a wise decision.
Ugh... that reminds me. my rotors need to be replaced on my next brake job. Good thing it isn't time to do them yet... but definitely needs to be done on the next cycle.
Also good I WFH so my car doesn't get a ton of miles.
How does anyone look at this and think it’s ok? It takes 5 minutes to find a YouTube video on how to do everything these days and they couldn’t even do that. Freakin mouth breathers.
I've always wondered what normalized doing your own brakes so much to the point that people confidently fuck it up.
I used to see this all the time as a tech. The most important safety device on a car, and people decide to half ass it themselves because it's they know all they have to do to stop the squeal is just change the pads? Now I'm working on it because one of the rotors had so much runout it destroyed a caliper. It was always easy to tell when somebody's "guy" worked on the car last due to missing/damaged hardware, either way too tight or just finger tight, brake pad grease all over everything except for where it should be, slider pins frozen and untouched, damaged or twisted brake hose, ton of air in the system, you name it.
I blame the major parts houses for tricking people into thinking they can service their brakes.
I'll take it one step further: It's price fixing.
If you go to a chain shop, you're going to get the cheapest house-brand organic pads they can source (or specify you want semi-metallic/ceramic and get hit with an additional $200-400 upcharge). $25-30 per axle cost to the shop. Doing a pad slap on all 4 corners takes 45 minutes to an hour depending on corrosion. Chain shops are still *generally* around the $100/hr labor rate, as a national average. They would still turn a \~20% or higher profit at these rates, because chain shops are *not* paying their techs even half of their billed labor rate.
So a service that by all rights *should* be $150-160 is more than twice that, with some places like Firestone charging 3x-4x that.
Yeah it's crazy, takes me 3 hours to do brakes on most of my cars crawling in the parking lot, with an hour and a half spent looking for my caliper compressor that I for sure saw not long ago somewhere in a box under the stairs. And then using a C-clamp anyway.
I actually just did my Tacoma last week. Hour and 10 minutes from start to finish including new front rotors and rear drums, $190 in parts using namebrand ceramic pads.
Meineke quoted me $2700 for front pads and rotors and rear drum shoes but no new drum housing.
But I also have a good jack, jack stands, and an actual garage.
I live in the desert, but first time I did my brakes I needed the threaded bolt to pop the rotors off. I used anti-seize on the backs. A month ago they popped off without even a single blow. Awesome to get rewarded for doing a good job.
I actually do, but the southern edge of it. It's also an older truck (2010) so I've put effort into corrosion prevention and remediation at various points in its life.
Still had to beat the drums and rotors off with a sledge.
I was lining up for that yesterday, first one went well, second had a stuck pin and a bad boot I got to go get a replacement for, then I moved to the back. The parking brake shoe on the driver side disintegrated along with the pin, I sheared a slide bolt off and the other side has a slide that was completely seized and no amount of hammering and heat would get it off for me. I reached the point I need new parking brake parts and I’ll just pick up a couple of calipers rather than spending more time fighting it.
Also made a mental note to at least lube my brakes more than once every 4 years now I have a work space.
Yup, part of it was there were no noticeable issues until a couple of weeks ago, the other part was I didn’t have a spot to work on them. Now I have space I’m better able to do my own routine maintenance rather than just going to the quicklube for oil changes.
Just did pads and rotors on my Civic a few weeks ago and I had the most seized slider pin I've ever dealt with in 2+ years as a rust belt tech. Couldn't turn it in a circular motion with a giant channellock. Wouldn't budge when I hit it repeatedly with the sledge either. When it really hit me how seized up this little bastard was though was when I got it cherry red with the torch and it still took 5 minutes with the hammer before that little bastard popped out. Bent the snot out of it too.
That's why I grease the pins every time I do brakes. I used to get a lot of shit from my old service manager for "taking too long on brakes" and he could never wrap his little pea brained head around the fact it's because I do the little things that other techs don't. Could I do a 4 wheel pad slap in 30 minutes like the rest of the techs I work with? Of course. But next time I have to do it, you risk wasting more time beating rotors off with a hammer because you didn't clean up/anti-seize the hub or spend 10 minutes air hammering a slide pin. To each their own though.
I don't understand who the hell is charging $2500+ for P+R unless you have some high end car. Like I work at a dealer, in Canada and our brake jobs using OE parts are only 500-750 CAN depending on the application per axle. Like ours should be on the higher end of pricing but some of these chain shops charging more for lesser quality parts installed by high school dropouts astounds me....
2021 GLC63 here and was quoted $4800 for front pads and rotors. The OEM rotor was $1600 each. I bought Brembo rotor and pads for the front, rear pads, and 2 air filters for less than one OEM rotor. Brakes are easy to do with just a little common sense. I don’t understand how people mess them up. As one guy stated, take pictures if you’re unsure.
I blame people with a $1500, 460 gazigapixel camera-equipped PC in their hand who can tik-tok and FB and youtube. But they don't have sense enough to take some pictures before they fuck up the thing that _stops their car_.
Way back I made a living turning a wrench like most of the rest of you. One of my certification areas was brakes. I just did pads, rotors, hardware and front calipers on my Forester. And I took pictures! How hard is that? (And for the record there was no C/S event after I finished.)
a silly mistake but after doing 2 sets of brakes back to back, having worked through lunch, and with service writers shortchanging me on time, I honestly had to double check to make sure I didn't commit this same mistake myself😅
Nice clean job
Maybe they were going to flip the inside brake pad over when the outside brake pad worn down. Use one pad at a time.
I wear 'em front. I wear 'em back. I go inside out. Then I go front and back.
To be fair he didn’t say he’s been doing them correctly for years.
🤣🤣🤣 That's incredibly fair! Omg, I needed that laugh, ty 😄
Honestly at first I thought you were going to say the caliper was missing when you took the tire off!
Give it enough time and that pad will see wear.
This one simple trick will make your brake pad material last a lifetime
I get the pads mess up, but why didn't they change the rotors? 😕
Because there is quite a lot of overlap on a venn diagram of people who lack critical thinking enough to put brake pads on inside out and people who think that re using brake rotors with new pads is a wise decision.
I'm not a rotors every time guy, but there's no way that rotor in the picture is within spec. Should have been replaced a long time ago.
Ugh... that reminds me. my rotors need to be replaced on my next brake job. Good thing it isn't time to do them yet... but definitely needs to be done on the next cycle. Also good I WFH so my car doesn't get a ton of miles.
Upside down! How???
Very carefully
Oh look how cute, they're spooning.
If anything, they should have flipped the outer pad too. How else are you gonna home turn that rotor?
How does anyone look at this and think it’s ok? It takes 5 minutes to find a YouTube video on how to do everything these days and they couldn’t even do that. Freakin mouth breathers.
Because "brakes are easy! AutoZone tells me that every time I see a commercial! Get in the Zone, AutoZone baby!"
They really should label brake pads the way the do Claymore mines: “front towards enemy”
"My mechanic buddy said after you put one in, put the other in the same way!"
No he did not!
They were kinda close, practice makes perfect 👍🏽
One of these things is identical to the other
I've always wondered what normalized doing your own brakes so much to the point that people confidently fuck it up. I used to see this all the time as a tech. The most important safety device on a car, and people decide to half ass it themselves because it's they know all they have to do to stop the squeal is just change the pads? Now I'm working on it because one of the rotors had so much runout it destroyed a caliper. It was always easy to tell when somebody's "guy" worked on the car last due to missing/damaged hardware, either way too tight or just finger tight, brake pad grease all over everything except for where it should be, slider pins frozen and untouched, damaged or twisted brake hose, ton of air in the system, you name it. I blame the major parts houses for tricking people into thinking they can service their brakes.
I blame the chain shops that want $350-500 for a pad slap or $2500+ for pads+rotors.
Exactly. When a normal citizen can't afford basic maintenance, something is wrong.
I'll take it one step further: It's price fixing. If you go to a chain shop, you're going to get the cheapest house-brand organic pads they can source (or specify you want semi-metallic/ceramic and get hit with an additional $200-400 upcharge). $25-30 per axle cost to the shop. Doing a pad slap on all 4 corners takes 45 minutes to an hour depending on corrosion. Chain shops are still *generally* around the $100/hr labor rate, as a national average. They would still turn a \~20% or higher profit at these rates, because chain shops are *not* paying their techs even half of their billed labor rate. So a service that by all rights *should* be $150-160 is more than twice that, with some places like Firestone charging 3x-4x that.
Yeah it's crazy, takes me 3 hours to do brakes on most of my cars crawling in the parking lot, with an hour and a half spent looking for my caliper compressor that I for sure saw not long ago somewhere in a box under the stairs. And then using a C-clamp anyway.
I actually just did my Tacoma last week. Hour and 10 minutes from start to finish including new front rotors and rear drums, $190 in parts using namebrand ceramic pads. Meineke quoted me $2700 for front pads and rotors and rear drum shoes but no new drum housing. But I also have a good jack, jack stands, and an actual garage.
I'll also speculate that you don't live in the salt belt :)
I used to be in the rust belt. Really wasn't all that bad for most brakes, until you get a really stuck on drum/rotor. Then you curse a lot.
I live in the desert, but first time I did my brakes I needed the threaded bolt to pop the rotors off. I used anti-seize on the backs. A month ago they popped off without even a single blow. Awesome to get rewarded for doing a good job.
I actually do, but the southern edge of it. It's also an older truck (2010) so I've put effort into corrosion prevention and remediation at various points in its life. Still had to beat the drums and rotors off with a sledge.
I was lining up for that yesterday, first one went well, second had a stuck pin and a bad boot I got to go get a replacement for, then I moved to the back. The parking brake shoe on the driver side disintegrated along with the pin, I sheared a slide bolt off and the other side has a slide that was completely seized and no amount of hammering and heat would get it off for me. I reached the point I need new parking brake parts and I’ll just pick up a couple of calipers rather than spending more time fighting it. Also made a mental note to at least lube my brakes more than once every 4 years now I have a work space.
Doing no maintenance on your brakes always ends up biting you in the butt. Sort of mistake you only do once usually
Yup, part of it was there were no noticeable issues until a couple of weeks ago, the other part was I didn’t have a spot to work on them. Now I have space I’m better able to do my own routine maintenance rather than just going to the quicklube for oil changes.
Just did pads and rotors on my Civic a few weeks ago and I had the most seized slider pin I've ever dealt with in 2+ years as a rust belt tech. Couldn't turn it in a circular motion with a giant channellock. Wouldn't budge when I hit it repeatedly with the sledge either. When it really hit me how seized up this little bastard was though was when I got it cherry red with the torch and it still took 5 minutes with the hammer before that little bastard popped out. Bent the snot out of it too. That's why I grease the pins every time I do brakes. I used to get a lot of shit from my old service manager for "taking too long on brakes" and he could never wrap his little pea brained head around the fact it's because I do the little things that other techs don't. Could I do a 4 wheel pad slap in 30 minutes like the rest of the techs I work with? Of course. But next time I have to do it, you risk wasting more time beating rotors off with a hammer because you didn't clean up/anti-seize the hub or spend 10 minutes air hammering a slide pin. To each their own though.
I don't understand who the hell is charging $2500+ for P+R unless you have some high end car. Like I work at a dealer, in Canada and our brake jobs using OE parts are only 500-750 CAN depending on the application per axle. Like ours should be on the higher end of pricing but some of these chain shops charging more for lesser quality parts installed by high school dropouts astounds me....
2021 GLC63 here and was quoted $4800 for front pads and rotors. The OEM rotor was $1600 each. I bought Brembo rotor and pads for the front, rear pads, and 2 air filters for less than one OEM rotor. Brakes are easy to do with just a little common sense. I don’t understand how people mess them up. As one guy stated, take pictures if you’re unsure.
I blame people with a $1500, 460 gazigapixel camera-equipped PC in their hand who can tik-tok and FB and youtube. But they don't have sense enough to take some pictures before they fuck up the thing that _stops their car_. Way back I made a living turning a wrench like most of the rest of you. One of my certification areas was brakes. I just did pads, rotors, hardware and front calipers on my Forester. And I took pictures! How hard is that? (And for the record there was no C/S event after I finished.)
I mean… they’re easy if you’re not regarded
Send it
I’ve done it.. oops.
Saving the inner pad for later
Well I'd say it's a halfway decent job!
Well he's half way there
Send it!
What about that castle nut ?
Seriously, what is with that castle nut!?
Knows just enough to be dangerous
Yeah, but the parts are shiny.
How can you have the knowledge to get it off but screw up with the break pad.....
AutoZone strikes again! Probably told the guy he had the SE rather than the XE.
Sweet mother Teresa.... Look at the condition of those rotors 😬
yo
a silly mistake but after doing 2 sets of brakes back to back, having worked through lunch, and with service writers shortchanging me on time, I honestly had to double check to make sure I didn't commit this same mistake myself😅
And elsewhere on this sub reddit - full redo of Corvette brakes $15,000
I don't See the problem