Hey people, I’m in an emergency situation and I need your help here. I took my car to get the brake pads and rotors replaced. They quoted the price of the job to be a little more than 200 – parts and labor. About 90 for the pads and rotors, then 120 for 2 hours worth of work, so about 210.

They ran into a problem and thought that they had to replace the bearings on the driver side. They took whatever part the bearings are housed in, so they could get the bearings pressed out, but they realized that all that they had to do was clean off the bearings, and just “re-build” them?

They just slapped me with a bill for $425! He said that the reason is that each side took 2 hours for the rotors and brake pads to be removed/replaced. My question is, how could it take 2 hours for a shop with all the necessary tools to remove and replace the rotors and pads? Is this logical? I’ve already dropped $250 of the bill, and I am a struggling college student paying for this myself. I’ll be much more at ease dropping the rest of the money off if I know that this is acceptable. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

How long would it take to “rebuild” bearings?

I believe they just played you like a fiddle. I did my front pads and rotors in way less time than that. Since i didn't know what i was doing, the first one i tried took like 30 minutes. The other side went quicker obviously in about 20 cause i took my sweet old time. In that amount of time they could've bled or flushed the brake fluid and checked everything else. Which i should've gotten done. Where'd you take it to? a pep boys or a reputable brake shop?

I just did my pads and rotors and I had to drill out the set screws and use a puller on one rotor, plus the fact I had to unsieze one caliper pin and all that took 2 hrs. Think you got hosed.

1st what year is the car and what kind
if it a honda accord than the time to do the brakes if they had bearing trouble is not to much off, them cleaning the bearings sounds a little funny but the time is not to bad. it usaly take us about 3 hours to do a brake job on a early 90's accord.

Hey people, I’m in an emergency situation and I need your help here. I took my car to get the brake pads and rotors replaced. They quoted the price of the job to be a little more than 200 – parts and labor. About 90 for the pads and rotors, then 120 for 2 hours worth of work, so about 210.

They ran into a problem and thought that they had to replace the bearings on the driver side. They took whatever part the bearings are housed in, so they could get the bearings pressed out, but they realized that all that they had to do was clean off the bearings, and just “re-build” them?

They just slapped me with a bill for $425! He said that the reason is that each side took 2 hours for the rotors and brake pads to be removed/replaced. My question is, how could it take 2 hours for a shop with all the necessary tools to remove and replace the rotors and pads? Is this logical? I’ve already dropped $250 of the bill, and I am a struggling college student paying for this myself. I’ll be much more at ease dropping the rest of the money off if I know that this is acceptable. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

How long would it take to “rebuild” bearings?

What kind of car do you have? When it comes to wheel bearings, there are 2 types, repackable and non-repackable. I am not going to assume anything with your car since you didn't tell anyone what you have.
If they are non-repackable, there is a certain amount of labor to remove and insert a new one. With your brakes off, that's some labor time that is already saved. With re-packable bearings, you need to remove the wheel bearing assembly off the hub, clean it, repack the new bearings and grease it, and then reinstall it. So, there is a certain amount of labor involved.

agfain, dont know what kind of car but in my hatch I havent actually replaced the rotors, but have rpelaced the pads, and have removed the rotors a few times while doing a swap and man it is so easy, I could have the car in the air, replace both calipers and pads in like an hour or less, and this is with a pump jack and no air tools. I second that you got ripped.

For me it takes me 15-25 minutes per corner to change the brake rotor and pads. Takes me 5 minutes to change the pads, which I do once a week since I race on weekends.

You definitely got ripped.

As for the wheel bearings I think you also got ripped for those since they found it wasn't that and they shouldn't have charged you if it was their mistake.