I'm planing taking advantage of a $99/ axle brake pad replacement at the ford dealer. However, the issue is, the service advisor is telling me that it is going to be an additional 2 hours of labor to replace the rotors. If you're already replacing the pads, isn't there a complete labor overlap to change the rotors? Anyone have recommendations for Ford dealers/ mechanics in the Phoenix, AZ area?
I suppose it depends on the layout of the specific vehicle. On some you can change pads without pulling calipers. Also, rotors don't always want to come off the hubs. I've had some serious tussles with them in the past.
and really hope you do not have "captive" rotors.. then you need to pull the hub to get them off
Totally legit. Most rotors require removal of the caliper brackets at a minimum to replace them. If they are hub/rotor assemblies, you have axle nuts and wheel bearings to deal with as well.
2 shop hours for 4 rotors sounds about right to me ... generally, you have to pull the carriers, remove the inevitably rusted in grub screw (or whatever you choose to call that guy who holds the rotor to the hub), remove the rotor (many times easier said than done), clean up the hub face, (maybe) put anti-seize on the hub face, install the new rotor, and install the carrier. Those activities are all in addition to the caliper removal that I'll assume needs to be done to replace the pads. So, yup ... seems about right to me.
Is removing this stuff more complicated on new cars? Changing a rotor would take me 20 minutes on my older volvo.
On my 30 year old rx7, it usually involved drilling out the screw that holds the rotor on. It involves bleeding the brakes. It involves heat and a hammer.
I would think 200 bones for all 4 or even 2 is worthwhile.
P.s. this is on my trackcar that gets this done twice a season. A rusty car that gets this done once every 10 years, =1000 x yes!
All depends on the vehicle. Whatcha driving?
Older domestic pickups would easily be more than 2 hours per axle since you have to pull the whole hub, press rotor off hub, press on, pack and seat the bearings, blah blah blah. Sometimes need to remove the lines to pull the calipers, which means bleed the fluid too. All the little things add up.
Rears also have to worry about parking brake mechanism sometimes, Particularly internal drum parking brakes on rear disc. There's a reason they came up with brake lathes for mounted rotors.
Normal. Shop times will list things like:
R&R Brake pads 0.8hrs
- add replace calipers 0.9
- add replace rotors 0.4
Most brake pads can be done without even removing the calipers, but most rotors require removing calipers and/or brackets, plus possibly bearings/hubs.
Some cars it's trivial. Once you pull the caliper you're just one torx or Phillips screw from the rotor sliding off. However, the overwhelming majority of cars that I've worked on aren't that simple, and two hours of shop labor can be a bargain.
Agreed. Some cars are only retained by the caliper and lug nuts. Once you take the caliper off to change brake pads, the rotor is just hanging on the lug studs. Others can be a more involved process.
That must be an average. In civilized places? That's an extra 5 minutes a corner. In the rust belt? You could end up breaking out every tool in the cabinet and end up with something major falling off or disintegrating, then have a pissed off customer insisting you broke it.
Any car registered north of say...Louisville Kentucky? Well, it oughta have a scarlet "R" branded on it after the second tag renenwal. 
Phoenix AZ? That should be about free. But the payback on a jack, sturdy jack stands, and a basic set of hand tools is pretty short. Do it yourself?
Most calipers, you unbolt one slider...rotate the caliper out and slap some pads in the carrier and put it back. To replace the rotor, you have to pull the caliper bracket. As other mentioned...captive rotors are a beeotch. Honda Accords and Nissan trucks have bit me with this in the past.
Even my brother-in-law does his own brake pads...and he usually can't do a damn thing. I say get in there and do it. No shame in paying for it, but there is no middle ground.
Around my shop, a pad slap involves removing the caliper and pads, removing the caliper mounting bracket, remove the rotor which will either be sandblasted and machined, or replaced, sandblast mounting surfaces on the bracket, removing, cleaning and lubing slide pins, or sometimes using the torch to remove seized pins, lubricating all moving or sliding parts, polishing the face of the hub, reinstalling the rotor, bracket, pads and calipers, and then test driving to bed the pads.
I'm not doing that for $99, and I'm not letting the car out of the shop without doing the whole job, because I hate listening to people whine at me about their shakey or otherwise poor performing brakes a month down the road.
You want a E36 M3ty job, there's another shop down the road.
And, I'd be willing to bet a $99 brake job at the Ford store gets you an estimate for at least a kilobucks worth of other work you absolutely must have done.
curtis73 wrote: Agreed. Some cars are only retained by the caliper and lug nuts. Once you take the caliper off to change brake pads, the rotor is just hanging on the lug studs. Others can be a more involved process.
Thinking of my own fleet - the 1.6 Miatas have the rotors loose when you pull the pads out IIRC. The 1.8 Miatas need to have the caliper brackets removed. The VW Vanagon requires dismantling hubs, and you'd probably have to pay me 4 hours for each rear one. The Land Rover has the drums sitting on the ground by the time you lay eyeballs on the shoes, which has got to be the case for any drum when I think about it. The WJ Grand Cherokee seems easy on the surface, but always involves a lot of sledge time to get the bloody things off even in our desert climate.
As a 20 year veteran of all sides of the service department I can sum it up this simple way:
If you will pay for it we will charge you for it.
Yes, in more occasions than not I was justified in charging for additional labor for many things including but not limited to: brake rotors, wiper blades, rear view mirrors, alignment checks and a whole lot more, but I will tell you that if I saw your car every 5,000 miles for a service I would rotate your tires and check the balance on them and would be inclined to not charge for some of the extras.
Good clients get rewards.
If it's an early 90s Audi with "UFO" brakes, then 2 hours sounds like a bargain... :)
Just about every set of pads ive ever done is one bolt in and out. Rotors are minimum 2, if you take the bracket and caliper as one unit. Usually more. And it also depends on how the rotors are mounted. 2 hours labor for a whole car is a pretty standard time imo.
This would be easier to answer if we knew what year and model your Ford is.
Just got the front brakes done on the wife's truck. Was about $200 due to rotors that had to be pressed off the hub. 2 WD, but the front hubs are like a 4 WD setup.
Coldsnap wrote: Is removing this stuff more complicated on new cars? Changing a rotor would take me 20 minutes on my older volvo.
Depends on the Volvo. I was never able to get one of the rotors to separate from the front hub on the ex's '73 1800ES. That mofo was on there. This was back in 2005. The rotors were installed in 1989 when the car received a superficial restoration by the previous owner, including all new brakes - but then the car sat unused in a barn for 15 years until my ex bought it.
mad_machine wrote: and really hope you do not have "captive" rotors.. then you need to pull the hub to get them off
Yep, I have those on my 924. That said, it takes about 5 minutes longer than with a "regular" rotor setup to change them. It's not really that big of a deal, to be honest.
irish44j wrote:mad_machine wrote: and really hope you do not have "captive" rotors.. then you need to pull the hub to get them offYep, I have those on my 924. That said, it takes about 5 minutes longer than with a "regular" rotor setup to change them. It's not really that big of a deal, to be honest.
You have obviously never changed front rotors on a CD5 Accord. At the race track we can do a side in about 30 minutes. At home it takes about an hour. FWD vs. RWD though. I had to get the axle out of the hub first before doing anything else.
This last time I just threw an Acura CL Hubs on it so I have rotor over hub with Prelude 11inch rotors and NSX Calipers!
I would push for 2.0 hours labor for the whole thing. Usually it all relies on the tech to agree to it. 9 times out of 10 I would because 2 hours is better than no hours.
Keith Tanner wrote: The WJ Grand Cherokee seems easy on the surface, but always involves a lot of sledge time to get the bloody things off even in our desert climate.
Interesting... ZJs and WJs have always been easy rotor removals for me. However, every modern Ford or Toyota I've touched ends in me beating the rotors with a sledge to get them to un-stick from the hubs (corrosion).
Standard charge. My wife's friend I used to do a lot of maintenance on er Elantra. A 20 minute brake job turned into 3 hours of cutting, beating and heating. I ended up cutting the rotor down the face into the hub area the using the 8lv sledge and a wedge to get the rotor free front the hub. Then took another 20 minutes clearing the rust off the hub and using a half tub of anti seize to put it back together.
2 hours is more than fair. If you don't like the prices they charge do it yourself. You know the saying: "those that can, do. Those that can't pay those of us that can. "
I think about the small difference between GM A, G, F, and B-bodies and later F bodies. All the GM cars up through the 90s had rotor/hubs, so you had to take the bearings apart to change rotors. In the LS-years of F-body, they changed it to a bearing hub with a floating rotor that just slides over the studs. So early ones would be considerably more labor to change rotors than the later ones.
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