Jo wrote:
Phil L wrote:
Jo wrote:
Hello,

My car was taken to a garage for an unrelated problem. The garage
said my brakes were worn and needed replacing. They charged me ?30
for the parts and ?55 for labour (excluding VAT).

The guy seemed shifty - he said if I paid with cash I wouldn't need
to pay VAT!

http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/8355/brakediscs.jpg

Are these brakes worn and were his charges reasonable? I estimate
the thickness of the abrasive portion of the parts to be 5mm thick.

Sorry for my ignorance on the subject, I'm a medical student!

Thanks.

Jo

The pictures are too dark too see anything, the pads just look like
black shapes and no detail is visible, although on the second one
you posted, it looks like the edges of the abrasive part are
'rounded'.

85 quid's not bad for having front brakes done, and why get so
uppity about him wanting to save you some cash? - you would have
given him an extra ?20, which he would then have handed over to the
taxman, what's the point in that?

I'm beginning to wonder if the job was really necessary now.

If he wants to fiddle with his VAT then that is his decision, I'm not
here to police tax evaders. However, I raised it as a reason to
justify my impression that he was a dodgy guy, otherwise I'd just be
accused of being paranoid without due cause (there were other non
verbal cues but probably not worth elaborating on).

I'm a fairly perceptive judge of character even though I'm quite young
and obviously come across as a chump!!

I just wish I was more assertive and said "No" to the job when he
found incidental problems with the car while doing some other work on
it.

Jo

You asked if you'd been ripped off, in my opinion, no you was'nt, £85 isn't
excessive.
Whether they needed replacing now or in the not-too-distant future or not is
not clear, but they don't last forever and you now know you have a full set
of working brakes, something you may not have realised until it was too
late, given your self confessed ignorance of mechanics and car maintenance

--
Phil L
RSRL Tipster Of The Year 2008