Bah!

[thistlechaser]

Took the car into the shop tonight. They found the cause of that metal-on-metal noise I was hearing. The cala-something, the thing that controls the brake pads' movement against the round, flat, metal thing, wasn't working right, and so the brake pad was 100% gone and so when I applied the brake it was, in fact, metal on metal. (Hello run-on sentence!) The cala-whatever needs to be replaced, and of course it needs new pads. That's about $500. Plus they found some, um, something else that needs replacement, too. The serpentine... cord? Wire? Something, it needs replacement as well. Nearly $100.

$500 + $100 + $20 (for the original oil change), plus I left work a little early tonight and I have to arrive two hours late (without even notice!) tomorrow.

Plus in the next 5,000 miles or so it will need new tires.

Sigh.

Comments

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

Calipers.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

That sounds right!

In fact, it's a feature

[kirbyk.livejournal.com]

Once upon a time, when designing a new Brake standard (the disk brake, as opposed to the old drum brake), the engineers realized that having your brakes fail is bad. So, they design them such that they make the metal-on-metal squeal before they actually fail. It's intentionally awful sounding, because they didn't want it to be ignorable. And you'll get your brakes fixed before the brake pad is completely useless.

However, the other story I know about brakes is that, when disk brakes first came out, few mechanics understood how to fix them, despite the fact that they are actually easier and cheaper to repair than drum brakes. So, they initially charged more for disk brakes. After realizing that the customers had bought into the idea that disk brakes were more expensive to repair, they never changed things, so they are still more expensive, and now drum brakes are entirely obsolete.

I'm not 100% sure if any of this is true!

Re: In fact, it's a feature

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Huh, that's interesting! I never heard that before.

[mallen.livejournal.com]

Brake caliper and serpentine belt. Sounds about right for that repair. New calipers + pads + belt should be around $600.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Last night they gave me an estimate of $600 nearly on the nose. They lost that paperwork and so a new guy re-entered the details into the computer and came up with a price of $482. Assuming they really give it to me for that price, I'll be happy.