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General Rip off brakes

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General Rip off brakes

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typecastboy

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My sister in law who had one of my 500s a couple of years ago took her car for mot to a local garage yesterday and it failed on front discs and pads. Including the mot they charged her £300.

Mr Clutch who I use, charge £149.50. Doing it yourself is less than £40, about £58 if you use Brembo and that’s retail parts price. I feel they have completely ripped her off. What’s your opinion?
 
Sounds about right for main dealers pricing not for local garage rates even saying £50 for mot that a lot for front brakes part's shouldn't be any over £100 even for fiat parts so must be a lot of labour charged
Unless they did any other work?
 
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I priced up the parts from carparts4less. £38 for the cheapest and £58 for Brembo. Full priced mot and no other work. Garages don’t go to fiat for parts they go to euro car parts or similar. If Mr Clutch do it for £149.50 how can a local garage charge £300?
 
VW who are well renowned for over charging. Charge about £300 ish for discs and pads on my 2 litre golf cabriolet diesel with huge front discs, so for fiat to charge this much money especially for a 500 is ridiculous.
 
The OP doesn't state what engine the car has.

Brake parts prices are model dependent.

1.2 parts are cheap as chips; other engine variants are considerably more expensive.

As jobs go, changing the front pads and discs on the 500 is about as simple as it gets, so no real excuse for overcharging on labour.

As others have already said, us DIY types will have change out of £100 for front pads, discs and an MOT on a 1.2. An honest independent garage should be able to do this lot for £175 and still make a fair profit. Remember also there's no VAT on an MOT.

Some garages, and franchised dealers in particular, will have labour rates significantly higher than the maximum permitted charge for an MOT, so will pad MOT work to make up for what they 'lose' on carrying out the MOT itself. That said, I know of garages who do nothing but MOT's, charge £40 or so and still make a decent living. (If you're in the Milton Keynes area, Just MOT's at Newport Pagnell is one such).
 
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jrkitching said:
The OP doesn't state what engine the car has.

Brake parts prices are model dependent.

1.2 parts are cheap as chips; other engine variants are considerably more expensive.

As jobs go, changing the front pads and discs on the 500 is about as simple as it gets, so no real excuse for overcharging on labour.

As others have already said, us DIY types will have change out of £100 for front pads, discs and an MOT on a 1.2. An honest independent garage should be able to do this lot for £175 and still make a fair profit. Remember also there's no VAT on an MOT.

Some garages, and franchised dealers in particular, will have labour rates significantly higher than the maximum permitted charge for an MOT, so will pad MOT work to make up for what they 'lose' on carrying out the MOT itself. That said, I know of garages who do nothing but MOT's, charge £40 or so and still make a decent living. (If you're in the Milton Keynes area, Just MOT's at Newport Pagnell is one such).
Click to expand...

Parts for the 1.3 are very cheep too brake wise anyway
 
Need more detail to make a judgement. What does the receipt say? If it's £150 parts and £100 labour you need to look at their labour rate. If its £150 per hour then looks legit. If it's £75 per hour you need to ask why it took over an hour for a 15 to 30 minute job.
Rates can vary Take a Jag X type and Foed Mondeo, basically same car. but I knew a Ford dealership next to a Jaguar dealership from the same group. Ford labour rate £75 per hour, Jaguar £150 per hour.


Robert G8RPI.
​
 
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£80 sounds like an hour's labour which (I'd guess?) is the "book" time for this job.

£115 for a pair of discs and pads is more expensive than using a motor factor (say £80 for Brembo discs and pads, e.g. from Eurocarparts) but if they fitted Fiat genuine parts then that price becomes not bad. You need to have a look to see what they've actually fitted.

There's no doubt discs and pads out there that give change from £50 but your dealer doesn't have time to go looking on the internet for the cheapest possible parts, then (when something goes wrong) has to confess that they fitted "the cheapest, unbranded parts they could find anywhere...". They have to use parts that their motor factor(s) have in stock (same day) and are of a reputable quality.

It's still a bit dear (assuming they used regular aftermarket parts) but it might be a bit harsh to slag them off straight away.


Ralf S.
 
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