OK so I need my rear brake discs and pads replaced. It's a 2004 A3 TDI front wheel drive. Took the car down to a local big tyre/brakes shop (protyre) where they quoted me about £150 to fit a set of discs and pads on the rear. I've had a quick google around for prices and to be frank it's bloody confusing, so er, is this a reasonable price? Thanks!
I guess it depends a lot on the spec of the brakes but it seems fairly reasonable to me. For my bike a new set of front pads is about £25, a new disk is about £100 so once you take into account the labour and the fact that you've got two wheels being done £150 sounds pretty good. Are you sure you need new disks? 6 years feels to me like a pretty short lifespan for a rear brake disk. Your best bet is probably to shop around a bit for the best price. Moriquendi
That's not a bad price. I just did front discs & pad on my Landy for £70 [my own labour], so they're being pretty reasonable.
http://www.eurocarparts.com/ecp/c/Audi_A3_2.0_2004/p/Car-Parts/Brakes £42 for a set of rear discs £21 for a set of rear pads £63. £150 is a tad expensive, but I suppose its not too bad. Discs and pads aren't too hard to change yourself if you think you can.
rears don't do all that much in slowing the car under braking, just helps keep it in the direction its meant be travelling, lol. I would be surprised if the disc's (rotas) need changing tbh, unless a pad has stuck and over heated the rota, which would show as a blue hue on the rota surface, getting darker towards the outer edge. Also depends on mileage you've done as well. £150 for both rears pads and rotas to be replaced in london, sounds pretty good price to have it done, you could do it yourself but its something best to first do with a mate who has done it before. Most people end up hitting the brake pedal somehow in the process of doing it all, and advancing the piston with no pad in place. which in short is a very bad thing. friend on mine bought the wrong pads once, so in a quick thought slapped the rear wheels back on and drive off with no rear pads fitted, as soon as he hit the brake pedal 2-3m down the drive the sudden feeling of extra travel in the pedal told him his day just got worse! face palm moment there!
I did a full set of disks and pads on a friends Golf MK3 not long ago for £200 parts & labour, but £150 seems all right to me.
The discs need changing because it got driven with no pads for a while (my parents' fault - they were visiting for two weeks and I told them not to drive it until I'd sorted it ) so they've been pretty badly scored. I'm having the tyres swapped out at the same time so i guess I'll just get it all done there if it's not a complete rip-off.
As above; it's not a ripoff, but if you can be assed changing discs and pads is a really simple but reasonably time-consuming job. (Burnout: Don't you mean rotor, not rota? )
I know where you're coming from, but I take the view that I'd rather get it done right in the first place to avoid having to blame anyone. Let the dealer do the brakes, but I'd shop around for the tyres.
I got quoted £360 for discs and pads on all four corners on an A4 at a proper Audi dealers so I reckon that sounds ok.
Fod, sorry for the thread hijack, but whats your average MPG? My boss is looking at a new deisel A3 sportback (i think) and he was wondering what the MPG is, the showroom quote 70ish.
Well the engine I have is the older 140PSI TDI which is a bit less powerful and I think a little less efficient too. Driving it the way I do (which isn't particularly slow... ) I average about 45. On motorways it easily goes up to 55; I've managed to get it as high as 65. As I've said, these won't apply to the 170PSI engines which are out know afaik. The 140PSI VAG engines apparently remap very well - the bluefins take them to about 185, and they claim increased fuel economy too. I haven't worked up the courage to get one yet; might do so this summer.
My Dad ran a 2.0TDI, last-gen now (pre-facelift new shape A3 sportback). He averaged ~45mpg (including loads of stop-start traffic), and got about 75 on a motorway run. That was with the DSG though, so you might get better figures in a real manual.
Yeah changing pads and discs is piss easy if you don't mind getting a little greasy. And it wouldn't take very long...under an hour imo. Get a haynes manual and get dirty - you won't regret it. Before you know it, you'll start replacing stuff all the time just because you can!
Having recently fixed small things on the GF's Mk2 rustbucket (i mean... Golf), i can safely say that ESPECIALLY the time consuming jobs seem worth DIY'ing. For example the ball join on the bottom of the gear lever. It's a PITA job, very dirty, and basically requires two people in the golf, but the parts cost me 30 NAD (about 2.50 in UK money). It would've taken two mechanics as well, and it would've taken about an hour. For a garage bill, add 800-1000,- to that pricetag (70 quid or so) at least. Sure, it took me 3 hours, but that's only because i had no idea what I was doing, and the wrong tools (for example - no pit to work in, so I had to work under a jacked up car). Similar stories with the gear linkages i sorted out the other day... brake pads and discs are easy enough, but if you don't feel comfortable with the thought, rather get someone to do it for you.
