Lude Generation

Bit of a nite mare, sent my car to mechanic to get a service last Saturday, I bought all the stuff for the service myself to save money and time, I noticed the car was pulling to one side when I was braking so I said I would change the calipers and if I was doing that I said I would get nice new discs so I got grooved and dimpled discs, anyway Saturday evening the mechanic rings me and says the everything's done but the calipers don't fit, so he says he can order the right ones on Monday for Wednesday. Apparently there's a few variants because the calipers he ordered didnt get there till Thursday and they were wrong too, he then said he would have the correct ones for me for Today, anyway they arrived and fitted the car and he rang me to collect the car, I left work early but the mechanics had closed by the time I got there they are joined to a petrol station and my keys and bill were in there, went in to pay and the bill was £485 it read like this

Labour for service 60
Labour for front pads and discs 60
Labour for calipers 60
So that's 180 for labour
Consumables 5
Engine oil 27.96
Brake fluid 10
Brake calipers 182
That's 224.96 for parts and provided everything (discs,pads,spark plugs,filters,caliper fitting kit, brake fitting kit and so on)
The whole job came to 485.95 I got drokked, I'm fairly sure
I don't have a lot of knowledge of engines to be honest and back In Ireland my cousin did everything to do with cars so never dealt with mechanics in this country

Anyway rant over I just wanted to ask if I'm going to have more trouble like this because I'm going to to do the springs on my car and get some strut braces as well, my car is v reg mk5 prelude it's a 2000 sport, anybody had trouble like this?

That's expensive for brake calipers. You've been charged for the calipers AND the surcharge that they'll get back when they send the old ones back I'd say (or they bought them from somewhere bloody expensive). Rest is about right unfortunately, if the calipers required a second visit.

And there are only 2 types of caliper and disc on a 5th gen so I'm confused by the wrong ones being sent twice (assuming yours has standard setup). 260mm 4 stud on 2.0 and 282mm 5 stud on 2.2. (think I've got that right, 5th genners???)

I ordered mine through a website and I ordered the ones for the 5 stud not realising, so I have to send them back get my money back, the site said Honda Prelude brake caliper oem spec mk5 so I thought they were for all of them
And the discs I ordered where fine no problem, grooved and dimpled they look really good on

Pretty sure it doesn't take 2 hours to change calipers and discs and pads seeing as everything is already stripped down

W1ggz wrote:Pretty sure it doesn't take 2 hours to change calipers and discs and pads seeing as everything is already stripped down

I read it that they would have stripped it down, done the discs and pads then gone to fit the calipers and found they didn't fit, so boxed up and put it aside for the next day (assuming they couldn't leave it on the ramp) then back on the ramp and strip off the old calipers and change/bleed on the second day? So that would be reasonable.

They had the old calipers off and would not put them back on said they were knackered, they had it on the ramp all week

Then for the time they lost access to the ramp/admin of getting the replacement calipers, that's more than fair IMO. Sorry - but good news that you weren't ripped off though? (well again, IMO... See what others have to say).

Worth checking on the calipers though. What did you pay for yours?

I gave 58 pounds each for the wrong ones which I still have, I was tempted to try selling them but think I will just send them back and get a refund, they have 6 ramps but they were fairly busy, I thought it was expensive but if people thinks its fair then maybe it was, like I said I Have not used a mechanic here before so I didn't know what it would cost

IMO he's having a laugh.

60 for front pad/disc labour? Not even all four? Certainly not an hour, I'm assuming these are hourly labour rates. If he has the calipers off anyway that's half the job done. I'd have something to say about that personally.

As for lost time/ramp, their problem not yours. Cars can always be moved. If they've got 6 ramps I assume they have enough employees to spare 5 mins to push.

I just paid £65 for a refurbed rear caliper though my dads motorfactors that was trade price with a £24 surcharge on the old caliper so £182 for two front is prob right at retail price.

At for the labour seem a bit excessive