General Pricing
Most routine brake pad replacement jobs (cars and light trucks) are priced in the $150 to $160 range. This includes upgraded (normal for us) pads, (high quality frictions, shimmed and camfered), and where indicated, a hardware kit (often at no additional charge).  All contact points are thoroughly brushed, cleaned and lubricated with a severe duty paste lube. Likewise all transmission hardware such as pins and anvill surfaces. In compressing the pistons, we release and discard brake fluid through bleeding. This prevents gritty or contaminated fluid from traveling back through delicate ABS components. We bleed the brakes again at the end of the job using foot pressure to dislodge any bit of air that may have "snuck in", and top off the brake fluid with Dot3 or Dot4 depeding on application. We also resurface the rotors if thick enough, use lock tite on threaded hardware, and use torque limiters to tighten the lug nuts in an even and alternating pattern to prevent rotor warp. Then we test drive the vehicle to make sure the new pads provide effective, noise-free, smooth and even braking. That my friends is our basic service. You can call or e-mail for infomation concerning your particular car and situation, but the best and only way to get a proper diagnosis and concrete price is to let us test drive and inspect your vehicle. This usually requires no more than a few minutes, up to a half hour (not including consultation) and is almost always free of charge.

It's Not How Much You Pay, It's What You Wind Up Paying
One of the great things about America, is that we have choices of all sorts, including who to entrust with our property and personal safety. Sometimes, perhaps due to dire neccessity, you make that choice on the basis of price alone, with or without being aware of the possible consequences.  For instance, all other things being equal, shops that price cut often cut quality as well. In some cases you'll be offered an expensive upgrade, and in effect pay a premium for what we consider routine brake service. If you don't elect to take the upgrade you wind up with what you call a "pad slap", which is designed for economy at the expense of quality. After all, you were offered the upgrade. But that brings me to the other cut corner, namely time. And remember, so far we're still talking about legitimate operations, even if they are mills. For those consumers that decline sometimes steep upgrades, even in a legitmate operation, if they're busy you recieve less care and time. At Mufflers Brakes and More, we do the exact opposite. We size up the situation and include in our estimate all parts and labor neccessary to achieve the best result, regardless of make, model or condition.  Most often this turns out to be routine pad repacemet, but not always.  Part of the reason we proudly display CarCare.Org's logo, is that we believe the consumer should know what's going on with his or her vehicle. In other words we never pressure, rush or attempt to scare the customer. If there are legitimate choices, we lay them out, with pros and cons, imparting as much technical information as the vehicle  owner can absorb, and that takes a lot of time. But it's important time. The customer can then defer to our best judgement at our stated price, sometimes higher than they wanted to pay, or they can take a second choice which is our routine service, even though it omits what we believe to be neccessary parts and service. I know it sounds bad, but in the end we have to be practical, and for the money it's a better value than a pad slap.  We represent this second option to the consumer as a poorer choice, but safe alternative to driving out the way they came in, which is often the worst choice of all. Caveats are explained at length and usually expressed in writing on the customer's receipt. Often these good people greatfully promise to come back and "do it right" but the reality of it is that even our downgraded choice is designed to function for the life of the pad.  And let's face it, without symptoms or dire warnings (no job leaves here that requires a dire warning), there's not much reason for a return visit. In fact we advise these folks rather to be diligent, and return if and when any symptoms occur.  For example if you had very uneven pad wear, in other words non-symptomatic (early stage) caliper failure, and knowing this you elect to not deal with it, it could mean accelerated, sometimes rapid pad wear, usually on the same side as the failing caliper. Failing in this case doesn't mean total loss of brakes but it does mean the caliper is failing to perfom within it's designed specifications and more to the point, likely to get worse. If we can't deter you from forgoing such a highly recommended service, we will indicate it on your receipt and forewarn you about the stages of failure you should be attentive to should they arise, like pulling to one side on moderate to hard stops, which can become significant at higher speeds.

Our Commitment To Our Community
Here at Mufflers Brakes and More, we take brake service very seriously. Although we're not subsidized, we feel we have a responsibility to public safety. This sometimes means performing necessary services for free to those unable to pay for them, but in need. One note though, try not to drive a car you can't afford to own. We see too many people struggling to maintain run down exotics. These cars, although sometimes a few miles away from the junk yard, or at least chronically neglected, often require very expensive repairs due to higher parts prices and maintenance avoidence.  What was once potential maintainence can become a very serious, full blown problem. Sometimes in desperation owners of these cars will search out a brake shop based soley on price and some shops will do anything to get the sale, including false assurances of safety which the vehicle owner desperately wishes to hear. By soft pedaling the risks, these "practitioners" give the shopper no reason to make a safer choice, and even for a crack salesman, that's unconsciounable. The fact is, if you're trapped in an exotic clunker you should seriously consider trading it for something perhaps less flashy, but reliable and less expensive to maintain.  No matter what kind of car you drive though, or it's condition, not being able to afford the time or money for a thorough basic brake job will often lead to not being able to afford even more time or money for a major brake job.  For some it may boil down to an inconvenience. "I was too busy" is the rallying cry of the poorly prioritized.  We'll always do what we can to help, but we can not compromise basic safety requirements.

What We Won't Do
When it comes to safety issues, the customer is always right, except when he's wrong. That said, there are things we will not do.  For instance we won't install new pads on a chopped up rotor. For one thing, until it glazes over, a chopped up rotor will rapidly grind up it's associated pad.  Also, until the flat pad surface is ground to the contour of the damaged rotor, there are gaps in contact that translate into reduced (possibly inadequate) braking performance.  Worst of all if a rotor is significantly undersized (too thin, rough or smooth) it allows the caliper piston to travel past it's intended range when the pads wear down. They can even pop out past the seal, causing a sudden and complete loss of pedal pressure that cannot be compensated for by repeated pumping of the brake pedal, which would in any case drain the fluid from the master cylinder in short order.  I don't have to spell that out, right? Good cause I'd hate to be accused of alarmism for the sake of a sale.  Another thing we won't do is install pads on a caliper with a torn or missing dust boot. The reason for this is that the part of the piston that has been exposed to the elements, will have to be pushed back into the caliper in order to install the new pads. This means forcing a rough outer piston surface past a fairly soft rubber seal. The effects of this abuse on the seal often don't appear for a while but as the piston moves back out with the pad, the same surface makes another pass, much slower this time. This allows any rough surface feature of the cylinder to "saw" away at the seal as the piston remains more or less in place but oscilates with each depression and release of the brake pedal. Even seal failures can be asymptomatic (often a synomym for dangerous) in the early stages. If the customer feels that adding brake fluid is normal maintenence, and fails to notice a wet wheel, or worse won't deal with it, (a caliper in this condition must be replaced) serious and inopportune failure to say the least is likely to occur. There are other examples of things we won't do, but for now these'll suffice. To sum up, at Mufflers Brakes and More, our estimates start from the top, and work down. We don't promise nonsense, and sometimes it hurts us, especially on the phone but we don't believe in bait and switch, and never employ fairy tale promises just to get you in the door and on the lift. At MBM we wish all car owners would learn a little about their car's brake system before shopping, especially by price alone. That's why We've linked the CarCare.Org logo to their home page which has a nifty, easy to use graphic interface. The website itself is comprehensive, informative, very user friendly, and multi-lingual. CarCare.Org's implied mission, through the standards they enforce upon any who bear their logo is to educate and thereby empower the consumer. And it's free to the public. I urge you to avail yourself of this valuable public service. They also won't let just anyone bear their name, but I'm proud to say that our philosophy concerning consumer education and protection was always in accord with theirs, even though I only found out about them recently.

Bending Over Backwards
The last choice we offer our brake customers, is to allow them to bring their own parts, which we'll carefully install but not vouch for or warranty. Both the parts themselves and any consequences suffered as a result of their use. These are not safety issues, and rarely performance issues but could include things like squealing, chattering, excessive dusting, rotor warp, and premature pad wear. The preparation and service we perform when installing your parts is exactly the same as if the parts were our own but at a reduced profit. Ironically it's often a case of anti-symbiosis, we both lose. It's a cardinal rule that you don't walk into a steakhouse with your own steak but we bend that rule in the interest of providing our type of personal care and service to those of you who might otherwise become unlucky and/or unhappy do it yourselfers.