[Closed] Raising an eyebrow at my garage bill

Never get the MOT done at a garage that will do the repairs

Did you not know your tyres were low?

I just replaced all the discs and pads on my car. £160 for brembo pads and discs from Euro car parts which included a 50% discount code. Not unlikely the garage would charge you full RRP so easily £300+ for the brakes, couple of tyres at £100 each, mot cost, labour etc I can see how they get to £700+

that's a lot more than I'd have guessed. Even it it was some fancy tyres I'd not expect to pay anywhere near that.

I would expect it to cost around half as much as that, but I'm far from an expert.

Never get the MOT done at a garage that will do the repairs

Or just find a garage you trust not to rip you off.

Garages are, what, about 50-60 an hour for labour? Call it three hours for that work, couple of hundred for the tyres, balancing and disposal and maybe a couple of hundred for the disks and pads. yeah, I can see VAT putting that up to 700 ish if the parts are expensive.

Do you have a breakdown of it?

Yeah I’d say that’s about right with labor included.

At least Dick Turpin wore a mask etc etc?

Aren't we all wearing masks now?

Service include an oil change? It's not called black gold for nothing!

Garages are, what, about 50-60 an hour for labour?

Last week main dealer was quoting me £156 per hour whereas the independent specialist (all certified VW technicians) was £80.
I lost faith with the main dealer when they told me my cam belt needed changing - my car has a chain.

Depends where you are in the country (urban / rural) and how much local competition there is. You can use clickmechanic to get a rough price for your area for that work. I can save £100 by using my parents postcode compared to mine but they're 250 miles away. The garages that quote on that are still 5-6 miles away which requires more time and faffing with buses or bikes or I can pay a bit more and use the garage 1/2 mile away which I can walk to.

It's a garage I trust - been going there for a few years. Thinking about it, nothing's needed doing for a while - guess I was due a big(ish) one.

Do you have a breakdown of it?

Yup.

£45 MOT test
£80 a tyre x2
£48 front pads
£52 front disc x2
£23 rear pads
£28 rear disc x2
£55 ph labour x3.

Whack the VAT on and suddenly it's over 700 quids.

Probably about right, then.

Got 4 new pads and discs on our Seat Ibiza last month. £350 all in at a local but reputable garage. That wasn't the cheapest pads and discs either. Same car had a full set of Goodyear all weather tyres last year which cost £400. So that would have been £750 so same ball park as you.

It really depends on what brakes and tyres you got for £750. If it was the cheapest brakes and chung ho ditchfinders then that's terrible. If good brakes and expensive branded tyres in an odd size, not so much.

LOL @

chung ho ditchfinders

🙂

The total sounds high until you see the breakdown.

You could have brought that down a little

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/192425275437

If the tyres are Michelin then it is fair enough I guess.

£48 front pads
£52 front disc x2
£23 rear pads
£28 rear disc x2

Just out of interest, how much do people pay for their MTB discs and pads?

(I'm so old i still run canti brakes, ha)

Just out of interest, how much do people pay for their MTB discs and pads?

£6 a pair for pads and £20 for a disc last month.  Noisy but very effective.

Id have been happy with that price for the work you had done here in the south east (Surrey)!

Although, like willard, I did the same for my pads/discs: parts from Eurocarparts and DIY

Seems fine to me. I would have expected labour to be more to be honest!

Yup.

£45 MOT test
£80 a tyre x2
£48 front pads
£52 front disc x2
£23 rear pads
£28 rear disc x2
£55 ph labour x3.

Whack the VAT on and suddenly it’s over 700 quids.

Probably about right, then.

Looks about right, individual prices look reasonable. I had a quick Google for mintex brake sets for ix20, £100 for front discs and pads, so you were probably looking at £200 parts to do the brakes yourself. 3hrs labour is reasonable for a full set of discs/pads, greasing slide pins etc + tyre changing etc

S'alright really.

I paid £610 this week for 4x new tyres, tracking, MOT, new ball joint & new oil sump.

Lucky to have found a garage I trust and who actively try to charge me less (talked me out of some work).

Whack the VAT on and suddenly it’s over 700 quids.

Paid this for just discs & pads for mine...

Don't forget cost of bike tyres !

I can see how that all adds up TBH, and non of those costs look excessive.

I've some sympathy with the OP, my first reaction was much like his. Seeing the breakdown of costs it looks pretty reasonable. A timely lesson for me, I'll be getting a service and MOT in the next couple of weeks...

Had similar last month. All new discs and pads, 1x calliper replacement, 2 new tyres and something else relatively minor. Came to just over £900.
For some stupid reason they car designers decided to combine the rear discs with the wheel bearings so effectively have to pay to replace both at the same time. Not even some exotic car - 2010 Peugeot 5008.
They're all wear and tear items that individually I wouldn't think anything of, but it soon adds up when they're all replaced at the same time.

Aren’t we all wearing masks now?

Yep, can't tell who the robbers are now.

Sure you can! The robbers are the ones that donate to the Conservatives.

Those brake discs are cheaper than Dura Ace (£52 each), although you only need two for a bike...

I paid £500 for 4 discs/pads for my wife’s subaru xv, that was fitted and included vat.
2 tyres would have brought the bill to almost exactly what yours is, so I’d say it’s par for the course tbh.

Those prices all look about right for branded or OEM parts.

brembo pads and discs from Euro car parts which included a 50% discount code

ECP prices bear zero relation to RRP.

If you order from Brembro/Mintex/EBC directly it's the same price as the discounted one from ECP.

Replacing a couple of quid seal on an oil filter housing? Six hours labour and dismantling half of the front end!

If the garage rang me and said "two tyres, pads and discs all round", on top of service and MOT, I'd be expecting a big bill.

I don't think £700 for this is bad at all.

More than I would have expected, but depends on several factors I guess.

Tyre cost can vary massively depending on the size of tyre & specific tyre fitted. You can spend anywhere between £35 & 140 on a single tyre for my car (not including fitting). Well-recognised branded ones start at around £65 (again not fitted).

I've just managed to find a receipt for our Ibiza FR diesel, for new discs & pads all round - we had them done in March.
Cost break down inc, VAT:

labour £165
Front Discs £68.23
Front pads £33.18
Rear Discs £43.75
Rear pads £22.08

Total - £332.24

Add on £80 a tyre & £50 for MOT, it's still only £542.

Are you sure they haven't included the VAT twice on the tyres or something silly like that? What tyres have you had fitted that have costed you £100 with the VAT included? What size are they?

I dunno. It seems on the high side of what I would expect, to be honest.

disk cost can vary massively depending on the size/quality of disk & specific disk fitted

Also from prior experiance I find Kia's and Hyundai spares to be on the higher end of the spares price scales regardless of where they come from.

IF...your tyres are 205-55-16's my local garage would've done that for £541. Their labour is about £40 plus VAT per hour.

(Just did a quick look on CarParts4 less at the brake pads/discs prices)

Quick look on ecp shows that anything that isn't their own brand crap is pretty much on par for what you have paid.....

So long as you didn't get own brand crap for Bosch/brembo money.

Just out of interest, how much do people pay for their MTB discs and pads?

I recently treated myself to a new bike that came with XTR brakes. Thought I'd buy a couple of sets of pads for the spares draw, £42 a pair! Almost fell over, and then could only buy one set because that's all I could find.

Old bike had Hope X2s, £15 a set.

big_n_daft

Never get the MOT done at a garage that will do the repairs

Did you not know your tyres were low?

I don't believe this to be a thing. my local garage is on a par for most inde's for price and they do MOT's - so why would I go somewhere else for an MOT? It makes no sense.

£721 inc VAT.

That's about right as I was already paying something like that about 10 years ago for my Toyota Corolla.

In another bill ... Try paying for Toyota Corolla ABS sensor ...

The bright side isn't being mentioned here...next time you need to do an emergency stop to avoid something solid or someone vulnerable, you'll have new tyres and new brakes all-round and they'll be doing their job as intended, and not at a much diminished worn rate. So what's that worth to you? - sounds about right.

At least Dick Turpin wore a mask etc etc?

Aren’t we all wearing masks now?

👏👏

Personally to me, it seems like a lot for discs and pads all round, plus 2 tyres on a whats not a massive car with special sport spec brakes. Theres a lot of mark up to be had though, and the prices that garages get them at from ecp is peanuts

I spent ~£2500 on parts for our Volvo and spent 6months rebuilding it, I hate to think the labour bill would have been!

Looking at the itemised bill i cant see where there is any ripping off. 80 quid for a tyre probably means it isn't a premium michelin or anything. 55 quid an hour isn't taking the piss at all, and 3 hours to do all that assuming they did it properly is ok too.

Looks reasonable to me

It’s a garage I trust

No reason to stop based on that breakdown. A good professional independent garage is one that will get repeat trade. And deserve to thrive too.

£50 an hour for labour probably means that the guys are getting £20 an hour. Seems quite reasonable.

Could be worse.

My old man was charged 500 euro for new brake pads and disks in France on the rear of the van for control tecnique

Came home to the UK on a 2000mile trip - it's making a funny noise - had a look . No pads left on one side On one side the anti rattle clips were backwards and when brakes were pushed was putting a cutting edge into the disks anad grooved them badly They hadnt changed the sticking sliders and had just covered them.in copper slip(has no place near brakes at the best of times) and to top it all off one of the carrier to hub bolts was finger tight...... Needless to say he won't be going back there.

Another 140 quid on pads and disks and new slider pins and he is good to go now. How it should have been by the professionals - no wonder garages get a bad name.

Not terrible especially if it's good quality parts.

Yes you can go ECP and buy pads for 18quid but they will be shite.

Some synth oil is night on 60 quid a litre. When I was at nissan 5lts of the DPF compatible low sap was 55quid retail and cost us over 35 quid....

150 quid of vat makes it a 600 quid job so I'd think its fair