Avoid Just Brakes at Tutt Blvd!

[Stealth01]

OK, so a few months back, I went to Just Brakes at Tutt and Powers (near the Stetson Hills King Soopers) because my brakes were squeaking. They checked and told me I Had 4mm on the front and 6mm on the back, and that I was probably fine for another 5k-10K miles. I thought that was pretty decent of them, so today, when my brakes were squeaking REALLY bad, I went back.

They told me it needed:

Front Rotors
Front Pads
Rear Pads
Rear Rotors Machined

They also said the front calipers weren't releasing properly, which was causing them to crystalize the pad material. So they had to "overhaul" the brake calipers on the front end.

Total cost: $577

So I took it to Bob Penkhus, who I trust implicitly to tell me the truth. Their diagnosis of what I need:

New Front Pads
New Front Rotors

Back pads were still at 6mm, back rotors were fine, front calipers functioning perfectly.

Of course, their total for those two things was $469, but they didn't try to push their service or anything. Just told me what needed fixed and let me decide.

So I'm ordering new rotors and pads for the front tonight and installing them next weekend. Just in time for the trip. Doing the Rotora rotors (plain) for $159 and whatever pad I decide I want, possibly even the Autozone Duralast Gold pads.

But I'll never go to that Brakes Plus again. They used to be honest, but not any more. Today, the front desk dude tried to tell me that my Droid phone was messing with their credit card machine. LOLOLOLOL.

He tried telling me how light my car was (Bwahahahahahaha!) and how Mazda had such a PROUD rally heritage (wha?) and then proceeded to give me his version of why Ted Haggard shouldn't start a new church because he wasn't following Christ's teachings, and blah blah blah blah.

Anyway, they were OBVIOUSLY bullshitting me about the front calipers and the back pads/rotors. I even had Penkhus specifically check the caliper operation and they said they were fine. I'll avoid the scheisters at Just brakes from now on!
__________________

[Voodoo]

Wagner Thermoquiets from O'Reilly's had these on my jeep loved them.



He wasnt totally BSing ya

[Stealth01]

Yeah, they sell the Wagners on Advanced Auto, too, but I think I'm going to go with the Autozone Golds, 39.99 for a set. I want to do a more complete brake upgrade later (slotted rotors, EBC or Hawk pads, etc), but I need something to get me through the road trip.

[bellalyssa]

I have Stoptechs on the rear and Hawk HPS' all around. They are fantastic. I can't wait to upgrade the front rotors when they are done... which will be soon. There is a line of material missing from one of my rotors... oops.

[iani1.1]

lol just breaks is a joke along with stiffy lube.

[chickenwafer]

Yeah I've heard of sooooo many horror stories with those dime-a-dozen franchise brake/car shops. I had a friend gets brakes done at Brakes Plus in Arizona and they ****ed him all up- cross-threaded his caliper bolts, f-ed up the screws holding the rotors on, charged him for machining the rotors when they didn't (rotor surfaces still had deep serrations in them with 250 miles of the "brake job"), installed the wrong pads, etc etc.

It can really be hit or miss with a lot of places like that. Some just want to hire some kid who doesn't really that much about cars but is desperate for a job, pay him as cheaply as possible and add in commissioned sales items like 200% marked up air and fuel filters for him to pitch to customers, and when something goes wrong, deny any wrong doing and refuse to make the situation right.

On the other hand, you can sometimes run into people who work and/or run those shops who DO know what they are doing. There was a guy I was friends with through a friend in Phoenix who ran a Goodyear Auto Center. He owned a 10 second '03 Cobra and he knew his shit about cars. He charged good prices and only hired good workers with lots of experience and ASE certs. That was a good shop- but the owner said it himself- there are a lot of bad shops out there just in it for the money.

[Stealth01]

Well, I did the brake pads myself last weekend at the base auto hobby shop. Took maybe an hour total, but I forgot grease and had to take everything off again this morning and grease shit up. Now the squeak is gone, the brakes grab nicely, and I spend a GRAND total of:

$40 on cheap pads (just to get through a couple of months)
$4 on the bay
$4 on grease

$48 total instead of the $677 they wanted.

A true indication of how totally SLIMY they were became even clearer today. They showed me my old brake pads and pointed to the shiny areas of the pad. THey SAID that was "crystallization" of the pads due to constant exposure to high heat from the calipers not releasing completely.

Uh....they're semi-metallic, douchenozzle. They're SUPPOSED to look that way. The brand new semi-metallics from Advanced Auto looked the same.

Anyway, this October-ish I'll replace the front rotors (stop-tech), machine the rear rotors, and go with some good pads (probably EBCs) instead of the cheap shit. Might even go stainless steel on the brake lines then too. Depends how much money I can scrape together for it all.

For all of that, I probably STILL won't spend as much as they wanted me to spend.

Crooks.