Perce, I believe you need to look at the Maintenance Schedule in your car's owner's manual. It should have an interval for "Inspect Brakes" in it, I believe, which is NOT each 3000 miles. Be that as it may . . .
When you take your vehicle into almost ANY service facility, dealership or not, and ask for an oil and oil filter change, that's what you get and you get it in (sometimes) "30 minutes or less, or the next one's free". Some dealers also manage to get a quicky rinse off in their automatic car wash, too, in that same general time frame.
In the "old days" of serivce stations, you didn't even get a brake inspection with each oil change. While the car was up on the lift, it might be possible to look at the brake rotor surfaces to see if there any unusual wear showing up, but that's about all--plus, you can usually only see one side of the rotor anyway. With the wheel off, then you can see the entire outer rotor surface, but the inner surface is generally hidden by the splash shield. What you can see of it can still leave much unseen with respect to wear patterns.
Sometimes, you can see how much brake lining is left on the brake pads, but not knowing if the pads are "riveted" or "bonded", even that's a hit or miss situation without pulling the caliper off.
With all due respect, this situation proves that if a dealership "touches" the vehicle, they are magically supposed to see everything's condition via "magic vision" or similar. They are supposed to also know that something going to fail next week, too, although everything looks and sounds fine NOW. And, when that does not happen, the dealership gets bad-mouthed for not "knowing" something was as it turned out to be, later, in advance.
Now, depending upon how much is being paid for the oil and oil filter change, will depend upon how much time is spent on the vehicle by the technician--just as YOU would do if it was your job to do (at a fixed labor rate). In other words, as already mentioned, it's about getting the vehicles' processed and doing a quality job in a certain amount of time. There will be time to check the air filter element and see if there might be something else under the hood that might need attention (while they are draining the oil oil and putting the new oil in), but not much else. As modern vehicles now take less general maintenance prior to 100K miles, there is less to check for.
One foreign brand dealership in DFW is advertising an oil change and tire rotation in "an hour". If that includes resetting the tire pressure monitor, that would be about right. Whether they might check for nails in the tires might be open for discussion.
Also, a "brake inspection" would be a separate and different labor operation than "oil and oil filter change". Therefore, more cost involved.
Now, Perce, as you perceive you have been taking good care of your vehicle with the 3000 mile oil changes, have you ALSO been following the Chrysler Recommended Maintenance Schedule at the same time? Key point!
As for what's better, a dealership or a private garage or chain service store . . . that's debateable. At least at the dealership, there should be some guidance of what the particular vehicle's supposed to be "doing" (just as a prior service station mechanic, who was used to seeing YOUR car every so often and knew pretty much how YOU drove the car, might know when something needed fixing), but when you take a vehicle into a chain store (of any kind), you might see the same techs in the shop from time to time and you might not--and this can vary from store to store, too. And . . . an important thing to consider, they might put some incorrect fluid in the vehicle (highly important with respect to ATF with many newer vehicles, especially non-GM brands!) or put the right fluid in the wrong place.
These places might be more convenient and you might not have had any problems with them, but it can all depend upon many factors. And, they might have "better" hours than the dealerships, too, which can be a plus. Generally, as long as you're in their area of expertise, things can be ok and you can build a relationship with the people there, too.
Regardless of where you take your vehicle for service, it always helps to build a good working relationship with those there--whether it's a dealership or somewhere else. The prices at a dealership can be higher than at one of the other places, which can be a factor, too, but the old "You get what you pay for" can become very operative if the non-dealership entity does something wrong in what they did.
As for the brake job, you can request the dealership not use their OEM parts, or at least ask them to get you a quote with OEM and using a quality part from a local auto supply. Sometimes, the OEM is more expensive but NOT always.
Also, Perce, you did not mention what the labor charges were, just the total price. I suspect that when labor and shop supplies are deducted from the amount you mentioned, the parts prices might NOT be that different from the aftermarket.
Also, I need to mention that some brake repair chain stores will advertise a really inexpensive price for their brake service. But you also need to listen to their "fast taking disclaimer" at the end of the radio advertisement. A friend used to work at an auto supply near one of those places. He said the brake shop was always calling over and ordering parts and not asking about the prices as the customer was going to pay them anyway (he claimed) so it was more important to get the car repaired than what the customer was going to pay. So, read the fine print on those deals!
In the case of using non-OEM brake rotors, make sure that the ones you get have the SWIRL FINISH pattern on them. This "non-directional" finish is there to keep the metallic pads from trying to "phonograph needle" follow the cutter's grooves and cause chattering. If the rotors have just a satin finish, you'll need to carefully "bed" the pads in with several medium-decel stops (which will probably cause smells and early fade until the satin finish is more polished by the brake pads). I know, that's what happened to me one time when I bought non-OEM rotors. Later, I bought some more (really good price, too!) that had the swirl finish on them. NONE of the prior "break-in" problems.
As thin as the current production rotors generally are, not cutting them is a better long-term option.
And, of course, make sure the brake pads are at least OEM spec. The "cheap pads" are just that, but something like Carbon Metallic are generally a little more money, but worth it.
Just some things to consider . . .
C-BODY