2001 Focus Rear Drum Replacement - help

I brought my wife's car in to the local brake place to get them checked. Car has 65,000 KM on it (canadian vehicle, or about 40K miles?). They told me the front pads need replacing and the rear drums. I do not know much about breaks, but the said the rear drum and shoes would be very expensive because on this particular car it is some sort of assembly. The quote was $650 us dollars. When I look around, this seems unneccesary and overly expensive. Can someone please let me know if I'm getting over charged for this repair?

Reply to
dehaanorama
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Seems likely to me...

Unless the Canadian Focus is very different from the European ones, the rear brakes are of a very basic design In fact, they look no different from Ford Escort ones to me! Any half competent garage would be able to change the shoes and drums in less than an hour. Your quoted price is perhaps twice what a Ford dealer would charge in the UK.

I would also question if the rear brakes need doing at such a low milage. My UK car is on 85,000 miles, the rear brakes are all original. The shoes are going to need replacing soon, but have not yet reached the wear limit. The drums still look perfect, although I will measure them when I eventually replace the shoes.

Take it elsewhere would be my advice.

Chris

Reply to
Chris Whelan

I totally agree; they are trying to hose you. Typical costs here in the southern U.S. is $100 per axle, parts and labor.

Ron (105,000 miles on original brakes)

Reply to
RonrutMR2

Front brakes at that mileage I would Expect to be replaced. But 650 is outrageous. You can get a set of oem rotors and nice pads for about 115.

The rears...I highly doubt they need to be replaced. I autox and road race my car on a regular basis and have 90k on my stock rear drums and pads. I just replaced the rear wheel bearings last month and my pads still had about a 1/3 of the wear left in them, drums looked fine

Reply to
smoedog

I have to agree with everyone else here, sounds like they're trying to hose you. I have a 2001 with 144k miles on it with the original rear shoes and they're fine. Take it somewhere else.

Reply to
jamesvroy

Before going somewhere else, pretend you're from a Canadian television station investigating fraudulent garages, and explain you're actually a qualified mechanic, who is aware of the trick they were trying to play. Also tell them to expect to see themselves on tv soon, should prove interesting.

Reply to
gm

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