I've just been quoted £605 to have both my front and rear brake discs and pads replaced on my Mini Cooper. I've done just over 39,000 miles and everything else on the car is in good condition (confirmed by the service they just ran).
This seems like a huge cost to me, especially since I just did a bit of googling and saw that pads and discs cost around the £40 mark each. I've also just been quoted £340 by another garage.
What should I do!? I know nothing about cars so any help would be so greatly appreciated
Depends who quoted you £605 and which MINI you have. If it was BMW then you will be getting OEM parts plus their labour charges which will be very high per hour.
Sure you can buy pads & discs cheap on-line but some of the quality of these may not be as good. Also, parts for Cooper S & JC Works (which may have uprated brakes) are a little more expensive.
I'm sure if you go to a good independant BMW/MINI specialist or any other reputable independant workshop you will save money simply because of their lower hourly labour costs.
My MINI has race spec. front brakes and these cost over £500 for replacement discs and pads!
Get OE quality discs and pads fitted by an independent garage. Parts should be less than £150 for the lot. I have recently been impressed with Pagid discs and pads for the R50 supplied by Euro Car Parts. A couple of hours labour unless the disc retaining screws are seized.
If your replacing the brakes because of the sensor waning, beware that it usually warns far to much in advance. My car tells me i have 1000 miles left before the brakes need replacing & they are only 1/2 worn. I'm sure going to get a lot more before I replace them.
If you have a little technical Knowledge and can follow instructions, then you can do the fronts yourself. I changed mine in a morning & was super easy. Rears are still doable, but take a little longer & u need to get/make a special tool to wind back the handbrake adjuster.
Brakes are not hard at all, most people can change them, u just need a little time and some basic tools. Also if your minded, you could paint your callipers a nice colour at the same time.
The brake wear sensors are guessing pad thickness, based on mileage, until they are triggered by contact with the disc. When this happens, the remaining mileage is in the several hundreds of miles. If your brake warning is over a 1000 miles to go, it is still at the guessing stage and can be not exactly ignored, but at least treated as not very urgent. Certainly do not arrange to have the brakes replaced if it is showing several thousand miles to go.
Once you get down to a few hundred miles to go, the wear sensors are quite accurate and at that stage should not be ignored.
I've just had discs and pads replaced all round on my R53. Paid half that quote with OEM parts. Get the work done at an independent Mini specialist. Dealer labour prices are ridiculous, especially when they aren't mechanics, just fitters!
This is what my pads looked like at replacement after the sensor had activated + approx. 800-1000 miles:
There's probably 3mm of material left on both pads.
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