Rotors...

Sometime I am like Brad and wonder if I'm being scammed. It always seem like they needed to be turned and, of course, there's a limited number of times that can be done. When I was doing my own brakes I would simply replace the pads and that seemed to work quite well.

Dave

(Car is a 93 and has 36,000 miles. Original brakes as far as I know.)

Well, they replaced the front pads but said the rotors are not too good. Not worth replacing, but that they will "warp quickly". WHAT the HELL does that mean? Either you replace them or not??? If I burned them out, okay, I'm a dummy, if not, they will work. Ford techs, help me on this one.

The brakes work nice now and the pedal is high and light. All stock parts btw...

Thanks guys!

Brad

It means there is nothing wrong with your rotors and they were hoping you would replace them anyway.

Sweet. Thanks! :)

Brad

Well, let's take a brief interlude from the usual (and quite evident) "all mechanics are asshole scammy bastards" and "all shops will pouind it up yoiur ass hard enough to make you scream" and get into real life..... This is no to say that there aren't scammy bastards out there, and there's no lack of shops that make you supply you're own vaseline.... BUT...

Someone said your rotors aren't too good.... I've said similar things many times.... Not being able to see yours, leaves me (and the scammy bastard advocates) at a disadvantage.

Your rotors aren't too good can also mean.... if they were on my car, I would replace them....... these rotors may have you telling folks my brake job stinks but I have no legal reason to fail them at this time.....

Isn't it interesting that everyone wants the "cheap bid" yet everyone gets pissed when the cheap bid proves to be cheap.

FWIW... I serve what might be described as "high end" customers. These are folks that insist on dependale, reliable vehicles. They aren't mad at the price of the repair... they are mad at repeat repairs. They hate visiting me but they want me to be sure that they don't have to visit me anytime in the near future.

The art of auto repair has many definitions... Some on this NG, if they were to meet me professionally, would probably consider me a "scammy bastard".... Truth of the matter is that I will service your vehicle in a manner that will almost eliminate the chance of unexpected breakdowns.... Others (like my son) prefer to operate from one breakdown to the next all the while insisting they "service" the vehicle regularly. Unfortunately, I can't see how we can substitute the word "service" for the word "repair"....

In my world, I have two options... replace suspect parts and be called a scam artist.or fail to replace suspect parts and have the quality of my repairs called into question. Surprisingly, I can throw unecessary part after unecessary part at someones vehicle in a vain attempt to cover my lack of diagnostic ability and that would make me a "thorough mechanic"....

(Car is a 93 and has 36,000 miles. Original brakes as far as I know.)

Well, they replaced the front pads but said the rotors are not too good. Not worth replacing, but that they will "warp quickly". WHAT the HELL does that mean? Either you replace them or not??? If I burned them out, okay, I'm a dummy, if not, they will work. Ford techs, help me on this one.

The brakes work nice now and the pedal is high and light. All stock parts btw...

Thanks guys!

Brad

Jim--

As a professional you do indeed have an obligation to do the right thing whether moral or legal. I just had my injectors replaced on my '90 LX 5.0. They said they could locate the bad one and replace it but there might be others going bad down the road so I agreed to have them all replaced. They also recommended Ford OEM ones over the NAPA ones at a higher price, obviously, to which I agreed. So I guess I'm your kind of customer. As I mentioned in my earlier post on this thread when I used to do my own brake work I just replaced the pads but that's my problem. When I pay good money for a professional job I expect a trouble free repair so I am. maybe the only one, on your side.

Dave

bastard"....

There's different motivations behind a shop doing a job and doing it yourself. Labor is expensive. For instance, my mustang got banged up when a 16 year old turned left 5 feet in front of me. I got the hood and bumper cover back and am fixing them. The body shop just replaced them. Even at the cost of new ford parts it's cheaper than their guy doing the work to make the originals right. But I can just work on them when I am bored and eventually I'll have viable spares.

Same thing with your injectors I'll guess. You could have paid them to find the one bad injector or just paid to have them all replaced. It doesn't make sense to pay all that labor and then still have all the old parts. But for someone doing it themselves, maybe the money is worth more than the time.

For someone knowledgable about cars and such it's easy to figure out the motivations. However there are some shops out there that are just scams. I still remember one particular shop that tried to scam my brother when he hobbled his car off the road to the shop. After talking to guy on the phone I simply told my brother to have the car towed home and I'd look at it. The shop was trying to scam him, big time.

The problem is the average person doesn't know the difference between the two. So they got burned once, but then a mechanic suggests something that is perfectly reasonable and it's thought to be another scam.

Thanks, Dave... in actuality there are many consumers on my side... on a Friday night, these people are enjoying an evening with their loved ones or are pre-occupied with a hobby or other interest. These folks aren't bothered with shoddy, low ball repairs. They aren't worried that they wont make it to work or their next appointment.

There are those that are only concerned with "what's broke".... there are those who prefer to avoid addressing a related concern on a subsequent visit. It's a matter of taste.... we can drive from one scheduled service to another, comfortable in the feeling that we wont be stranded or embarrassed - or we can drive from one breakdown to the next, bitching about the poor quality of service we doom ourselves to....

Jim, you're RIGHT! Arent I almost always on YOUR side?

But i do my OWN repairs, always had until I made good money, then a professional 'friend' replaced my leaky escort water pump. Which bearing then went out and ruined the engine 30,000 later.

And which same "friend" I saw scam ANOTHER acquaintance with a new PCM on a fox tbird when the obvious fail was the relay in the kick-panel. I freakin SAW the evidence on his COUNTER!

Since then, I went BACK to doing my own. Because the ONLY GOOD shop I knew of always has a 1-2 week backlog.

So, I say to those who read this.. if you have a shop that treats you right, NEVER try to low-ball them. Whether you DIY or pay for service, NEVER low-ball parts either.

Never install cheap pads, or cheap rotors, either. But if your brakes work right, they work right... up to you.

"Jim Warman" wrote in news:u%5Ze.305121$on1.263577@clgrps13:

Guys... don't have the work order here on my brakes. But I will get tomorrow and re-write it, word for word. Then, you tell me what is going on. Stay tuned.

Thx.

Brad

Okay guys, in case anyone cares... here is the workorder from my brake job, word for word:

"Complaint: check and advise on brakes being spungy. seem to have squeal as well.

Correction: Road test and confirm needs front pads and rotors possible. Can save rotors but very disshed and will warp again very quickly. Also needs rear drum machine."

So, what does that mean. Do I need new rotors?

Brad

And that is the correct spelling on the workorder.

Sounds like the rotors can be cut one more time to "even them out", but they're close to the borderline so they'll probably warp again in the not-too-distant future. Also sounds like the rear drums need to be machined (cut).

Since you're getting new pads up front, I'd also spring for the new rotors and be done with it. You might also want to consider upgrading the pad/rotor combo. Check out PowerSlot rotors and Hawk pads for starters.

Joe Calypso Green '93 5.0 LX AOD hatch with a few goodies Black '03 Dakota 5.9 R/T CC

"BradandBrooks" wrote in news:0D4_e.559945$s54.81303@pd7tw2no:

"Jim Warman" wrote in news:pL1Ze.189738$wr.36340@clgrps12:

Not a judgment call in any way. The rotors are defined and have a legal and non-legal specification in any state's lawbooks. A mechanic who makes a judgement call on rotors has not pulled out his caliper. The only judgement call is when the rotor is within a few thousands of spec, and even the lawbooks give a healthy margin of error for that one.

There's actually a statute on the books defining rotor specifications?? That I find incredible. Can you direct me to a specific statute? I would like to read first hand what it says.

I suspect the only thing anyone will find is that in states/countries with socialist/communist "inspection" (auto shop full employment act and protection racket) laws they would more or less fall under "failed inspection/defective part" scam.

I'm almost willing to bet that such laws don't exist anywhere.

Rotors are stamped with a minimum thickness. Laws referring to auto safety generally forbid exceeding limits on any part so stamped.

bradtx

Can you point me to any law referring to auto safety? I still want to see for myself vs. blindly accepting what one supposes is the case.

Interesting perspective, and I dont know the answer specifically. BUT, some shops refuse to cut below the minimum stamped for LIABILITY reasons. The manufacturer, under lawsuit, may have similar recourse to this as prima facie evidence.