kwaobus

walked in the dealer, had the front brakes done (pads and rotors, lasted 25k miles) and two new rear tires (alsted 12,000miles), and walked out with $3,300 less in my wallet, OUCH... And I was able to get a 'deal' on the brake job, 'only paid' $2400, when most dealers were quoting $3k.

E55_GT3wheels

ouch! Got to love the stealership. Pure rape. Although I am sure the parts alone for the SL65 were crazy expensive

TimsSL65

Reminds me of the "major" tune-up on my old Ferrari 355...$10,000 (not a misprint). I now have an Ferrari F430 Spider which costs a much more reasonable $3000. Of course, when it comes time to replace the 430's ceramic brake rotors and pads, it will cost $30,000 (again, not a misprint). You play, you pay!

Tim

RedG

Why is it rape? and the dealership labeled 'the stealership'? A SL65 costs what? $150,000 new? You think it is awkward the brake job costs $2500+? Just be glad you never generally replace engines, that I would guess would be well in excess of $40,000.

mark anderson

My dealer quoted me 3 hours to change pads front and rear. I did it myself in less than 1. To me that is stealing.

Xeron

will doing it yourself void the warrantee?

jmf003

No, but it's a good idea to keep the receipts and a log just in case the dealer someday challenges it.

KA8

haha wow that's expensive. No matter how wealthy I get I'm not spending that much for a brake job. I could probably get it done for $500-800 MAX. How different can it be from other cars?

MB211

MSRP on the rotors is $1940 for just the parts.....GL with doing it for $500-800......

CynCarvin32

Go price out the cost of pads and rotors for a 65 and then call your local tire shop or luke at tire rack for a price check on 2 285/30/19 delivered and installed. Then come back and realize that his bill is not half bad.

I love the line the "stealership". No one wants to pay anyone for services rendered and its kind of pathetic. I would love to walk up to those same people and offer them a price below their cost on whatever service they provide for a living. I bet they would tell me to f off and go pound sand.

If you want to save the cash do the work your self but don't sit back and accuse them of screwing you. If you noticed dealerships are closing down left and right. Tell me that places close down because they are making such massive profits on sales and service. Learn what it costs to run a dealership and then realize what you have to charge to turn a profit. Its just a simple business model.

mark anderson

I see most of your point but how is it fair if the dealer wanted to charge me 3 hours for something I did in 1? If they need to charge $175 per hour I can understand that as high as that may be but I do have a problem with the amount of hours.

CynCarvin32

All car manufactures and even most independent shops for that matter, work off the book system. The computer has a book labor time for each job. This is done to allow a tech enough time to complete the job and still operate at a high level of efficiency. When you stop and look at the actual time needed to do a brake change on the car it really does take longer than 1 hour. When you factor in time time needed to de-activate and re-activate the SBC system, prep the car, get parts, do paper work etc it takes likely 2 hours to complete the job in the hands of a skilled tech. I honestly did not see if this was a 4 wheel brake job or just a front axle job. I was "skimming the thread" and too offense to one of the posts.

If 3 hours is the book time for the job then its hard to go below that. They can discount it a bit but not down to just one hour. Also is labor 175 an hour at your dealership? I know here in Southern California it is 150 or so an hour but in areas like the Pacific Northwest it is closer to 100-120 an hour. Labor charges are typically regional. When one dealership in a region raises the labor costs its just a matter of weeks until the others follow suit.

With all the associated costs it is getting harder and hard to turn a decent profit in this field. The factory is cutting back on warranty work and warranty pay to the point where the dealership and techs barely make anything on some jobs. That makes a job like this brake replacement very valuable.

Edit -- 3 hrs for front and rear pads is in the ball park for book time. I think you could ask for a better deal and get closer to 2 hours with a smile and a hand shake.

RedG

They charge book time (as determined by Mercedes Benz) for the average technician to complete the job. Btw, that includes more than just putting pads and rotors in the car. It includes bleeding the brakes (or at least should), test driving before and after. I bet all in all between your drive before, working on, and drive after it amounted to 2-3 hours.

A good technician should be able to complete the job quicker, but does that mean they shouldn't earn the book time rates because they are better technicians? Trust me, they don't return major margins on the parts, and that is another reason they charge book time.

Besides the bay space is expensive and CynCarvin32 is right. My shop when I lived in michigan cost nearly $3,000,000 to run annually.

IngenereAMG

The last time I bought 65 front rotors, I paid ~$1K + $200 something for pads. 55 rotors are only ~$100.

But you can't complain about what someone charges for a service. They have overhead, employees, utilities, taxes, etc.... and just maybe would like to make a profit. If you don't want to pay, figure out how to DIY. That will work for some, but for most, they would rather pay someone. When I was younger I did allot of my own work on my cars, including engine out majors on my Ferrari's, but now... most of the time it's worth it to have it done.

TMC M5

Funny...my car is at the MB dealership today. I am having my front rotors and pads replaced on my CL65. My buddy is a Master Tech there and got me a pretty good deal $1,580 for both front rotors (down from nearly $2,500 MB list price). I bought the Akebono ceramic pads from Tire Rack ($200 shipped). Because they are doing some other warranty work (and my buddy is doing the work) I am getting a discount on the labor. So my complete front brakes change will cost $2K. When I first got my car another MB dealership charged $600+ for just the front pad change. So the OP is right most MB dealers will charge $3K to change the front brakes.

Tom

Air Marshall Eldritch

Some dealers make a killing on parts and some charge somewhat close to cost. If you can post itemized prices on those rotors from your receipt, I can tell you exactly what the markup was. Front pads are around $200 for the 65.

CynCarvin32

I just dont understand the complaining. I just would love to see people complain if everyone came in and asked them to sell goods at cost with a 5-10% mark up. That would NEVER happen. You pay a 200% mark up for jeans and shoes but everyone gets all bent out of shape for some brakes. I work all day long for the chance to make a return to make it worthwhile. The owner of every business has exposure and risk out there and to make it worthwhile you have to make a profit. If not go home and take a nap.

Its called trying to cover costs and make a profit. Without profit no one will be there to fix your cars. Pretty simple.

Air Marshall Eldritch

Jeans and shoes are far less of a commodity, I would say. MB parts are easy to find online and an OEM rotor is an OEM rotor. It isn't as easy to find out what is Brooks Bros COGS for a suit, or to even get one through alternate channels, but parts are a different story.

allenjdmb

for making all the money, then don't be too mad at your dealer. Lesee, he has anywhere from a $2(old, small) to $20 million (Miami, Atlanta, Dallas, LA) dollar investment, while he has to cover anywhere from $200k to $2 million a month in overhead....then has to put up with the factory's BS nite and day...and wait to open his mail for hundreds of thousand of dollars for parts and equipment that he'll never need or use once... spend all day waiting on the newspaper, TV, radio guys to come by because he's an "easy mark", as well as all the Little league teams and charitable organizations. Think the guys at MB in NJ have to do this? And if you had $5 to $20 million available, in credit and/or cash, would you put up with this mess? Me neither.
Yep, some of them are downright lousy. Some are just trying to keep it together. Wanna be mad at someone, probably better to direct it to the manufacturer. They are the ones with the most profit left in the process.

BTW, if those pads/rotors failed that you put on in your garage, and you hit a kid in a crosswalk, wouldn't you immediately be on the phone to the "stealer" to let them know you planned on indemnifying them? The liability insurance at out local small market dealer, a tenth the size of the big metro ones, has an annual premium of a few hundred thousand dollars.
Just saying I've seen it from both sides. It ain't perfect for either. Or us. Just gotta choose your battles.

Go ahead.

Air Marshall Eldritch

Um, no. I'd be hiring a defense attorney.

allenjdmb

that we want to get the deep pockets on the hook!
No matter how much you carry, gotta be nothing compared to the manufacturer...

G_KATS

wow u guys get ripped off ..... thank GOD i have connections with automechanics

mark anderson

I don't know, that was just a high guess. They can charge $200 an hour if that's what they need to do, I was just surprised I could do the job having never done it, in less than 1/3 the time.
I sell car parts for a living so I understand the need for profit and overhead cost.

RedG

And you should realize that with EVERYTHING you purchase in Canada is taxed nearly 50%.

TMC M5

I am not sure you would get much better deal on an OEM AMG two piece rotor. They have a special aluminum hub and measure 15.4" in diameter. There really isn't a similar quality aftermarket rotor for cheaper....there are some more expensive ones from RENNtech out there....

Tom