On Wednesday, June 18, 2014 12:37:05 PM UTC-4, Tim Wescott wrote:
On Wed, 18 Jun 2014 09:15:38 -0700, rangerssuck wrote:



The wife's car was making some rubbing noise from a rear wheel. I pulled

of the wheel and found significant (structural) rust on the brake drum.

I didn't have time to do this myself, so I took it to a local garage

where they've done good work for me in the past.



I checked the price of drums & shoes on Autozone's web site (there's

actually an Autozone store directly across the street from this garage),

and figured an hour & a half for labor. It turns out that I was spot on

with the labor, but he charged me almost exactly DOUBLE Autozone's price

for the parts.



I gotta figure that he get's maybe a 15 or 20 percent discount on the

parts, and I would have been OK with a 20 or 25% markup over list, but

this seems kind of excessive. He's entitled to earn a living and all,

but a hundred bucks to walk across the street?



It's been a long time since I was in the mechanic business, and I'm

wondering whether this is the new normal?



Did he buy from Autozone? There's a huge variation in price and quality

depending on who you buy parts from, and I'm under the impression that

Autozone isn't the best place to go for high quality.



(Back in the 1980's I maintained my own car. If I wanted a part to last

forever, I got it from the Toyota dealer. If I didn't mind a part

breaking after a year or two, I paid half as much at NAPA. If I wanted

to waste my time installing a piece of s**t, I bought it for 2/3 the NAPA

price at a discount auto parts store.)



--



Tim Wescott

Wescott Design Services

http://www.wescottdesign.com

Just checked the NAPA prices: The drums are $42.49 each vs $35 at Autozone, and the better of two choices of shoes are $29.99 vs $26 (for both wheels). So there's $19 accounted for out of about $95. Still seems excessive.