Front Break Pads

[ecco]

Hi all,

My dealer in Toronto said that it is a time to change front break pads and rotors since only 40% is left. They told me this is a wear&tear item and its not covered with warranty. They verbaly quoted approx $450 CAD. My Mazda 3 GT is 2008, financed and on its 81500km. I didn't notice any problems with breaking etc. Idea came from dealer during the regular 8000km maintenance.

My question is if I have to go to the dealer exclusively or could it be local mechanic? Would this affect my extended warranty or create any other issue regarding the warranty? Any idea why rotors need to be changed all together?

Thanks,
ecco

PS. I have extended warranty 6yrs 120.000km.
No intent to do mechanic's work by myself.

 

[SKY]

You can still drive for a while with 40% left on the brake pads. Brakes are tear and wear parts and of course not under warranty, same for your tires!

$450, is it just for the pads (front and rear) or labour included?
Either way, it seems expensive....Brake pads are about $150-200 for front and rear and they probably charge you $250 to change it? Unless rotors are inlcuded but I doubt it at this price.

People usualy change the rotors together becuase it save a bit on labour to do it all together and sometimes it gives some bad noise if you put on new pads on old rotors, but not all the time, it may.

I always go to a mechanic for not warranty related work. No worry about your warranty, the people at service just BS you if you warn you about void your warranty if not serviced from dealer.

What I would do is to wait until your pre-winter tune up, get it your brakes check out again and see if it really needs to be replaced. (Go to another place to get it check, lol)

 

[chromal]

Yeah, I think my take would be, if you got 81000km out of 60% pad wear, you should be able to get another 40000km and still have a 10% reserve remaining. Or alternately, if it costs CAD$450 to replace it, throwing out a good 40% of pad life is CAD$200 of wasted pad. I'd probably drive it another year and have a brake place inspect where things are at, then. Be safe, but pragmatic!

 

[ecco]

Thanks for suggestions,

Just a small explanation: $450CAD includes front pads+rotors and labour. Anyways it was just approximate price I got from Mazda dealer.

Regards,

ecco

 

[rhcpmk]

I live in Brampton. Go to "just Brake" (somewhere near sheppard and weston), its the cheapest shop in town for all brake parts. For the mazda protge5, i called today because i want to get mine done. $160 total for all 4 discs and all the pads. Yeah the parts are cheap, they have better parts too but obv they are more expensive and I used their cheapest pads which were $20 a wheel on my old '94 protege, and no problems. They last atleast 50,000 km. Seriously, the discs (rotors) there are like $20 brand new, and brake rotors is one of the easiest jobs to do even though i've never done it, you can always find some apprentice that'll do it for like $20 the whole job. I have a guy that can do it for you for $35 total labour, again, in brampton though.

 

[Sloppyjalopey]

that seems a little high

I find that sounds quite high, unless they're premium parts, I live in brantford and I go to shermans auto parts (best deals in town) and I do it myself at home. Brakes are quite easy to do, sure I'm in school to be a mechanic but the way I see it just about anyone who knows how to use a wrench should have no problem doing it themselves. Good Luck