Front Brake Price Quotes

So the 98 2wd needs brakes. I'm low on cash but don't want to put this off much longer. Here are the quotes I got for the front brakes only. The rears will have to hold off another month or so. Let me know what you think. Thank you!

Replacement pads from NAPA: $51.99 for top of the line (United Brand)
Replacement rotors from NAPA: $31.99 each

Replacement pads from another local parts store: $20.38-44.06
Replacement rotors from same parts store: $33.38 each

Cost at local machine shop to turn rotors: $12 each

Cost to have work done at Midas: $150 (Includes replacement front pads (Centrix) and turning rotors

Cost to have work done at Les Schwab: $256.75 (Includes replacement front pads, turning rotors and brake flush

Money is very tight right now but I don't want to compromise safety with stopping. Your input is greatly appreciated.

what exactly are you looking for from us? Those look like pretty standard prices anywhere you go, minus the Les Scwab bullshit.

A suggestion or two.
Often local parts stores will turn rotors for free or at a reduced price if you buy the pads from them. If the rotors are under spec. they will need to be replaced. The parts store or brake shop probably can't even give them back to you if they are under minimum thickness.

I.M.O., Stay away from true ceramic pads. They need to be heated up to work decently and our Cherokees aren't exactly high speed cornering machines.

This is not exactly a tech question BECAUSE you are more interested in a local price for having a job done.

What it will cost in Chicago/New York/L.A./Boston/Phoenix doesn't have a lot of relevance for you.

Therefore non-technical price oriented questions are better for your local regional forum to give YOU the best response.

If you would like I could move this for you.

Good luck.

Gee, do them yourself, 5 lug nuts, wheel off, two caliper bolts, caliper off, rotor hits your foot as it falls off, hop around cursing and swearing for five minutes, C clamp the piston back into the caliper, stick anti vib goop on the back of the new pads, snap them in, stick new rotor on, put one lugnut on a couple of turns to avoid repeat of putting on a show, slide caliper over and tighten the two bolts, done. You want to clean things up some like the bolts, clean and lube them, but thats pretty much it, did the wifes ZJ in under 35 minutes but that also included 5 min of beating a rusted rotor off because the last yahoo who did them [not me] forgot to put some anti-seize on the hub. I never turn rotors. Do it yourself under $105, C clamp and some anti-seize in a tube.

You can get Pads and Rotors from rockauto.com for $80 shipped and get a free Raybestos t-shirt. A free t-shirt always seals the deal for me!

Or save by doing it yourself and with the difference go ahead and order Wagner shoes and pads from Rockauto right now, possibly save on shipping and get a $30 rebate.

I recently went through the rusted on rotor thing--a lot of PB Blaster, beating, etc--a lot more than 5 minutes. What finally got it was just a minute or two with a Mapp gas (or propane) torch. Maybe it was ready to drop off anyway but I was nonetheless amazed.

I've never had a rotor rust on enough that I couldn't smack it off with my hand... and I wear steel toed boots at all times to avoid the kind of show RichP apparently puts on

You also forgot the "strip out threads in knuckle for caliper slide bolt, prepare to swap knuckle from spare axle, helicoil it, or say xxxx it and just ram the bolt in there anyways" step.

Kastien...."I've never had a rotor rust on enough that I couldn't smack it off with my hand" Your a lucky man!

I have 2 rotors still stuck to the wheel bearing assembly. One of them I beat on with a sledge hammer after it was off, just for fun of it to see if they would come apart, its still a one piece unit! thats on a 1999.


98NW; Moneys tight!
Do them yourself. Buy a book. One of the easier jeep things to do. Even more so when you have some of the guys from this site as a resource! They have an incredible amount of knowledge. Use it wisely!

Luck doesn't enter into it, the rest of my jeep (the first one anyways) rusted to pieces around me :gee: I mess with my axles and brakes enough that there is never really enough time for them to rust together. The brakes have been off both sides of my 91 and 96 at least 3-4 times each at this point and I've only owned them for a combined total of 2.5 years or so.

Keep in mind beating on rotors = beating on wheel bearings. Not a good thing. PB Blaster, heat, whatever it takes.

Good point and absolutely true. "Beating" makes a good story but probably not appropriate when others may read the post and think that is the way to remove stuck rotors. Tapping is probably a better use of words and no doubt why I couldn't get mine off the first several go-rounds.

98NWCherokee, we haven't heard back from you but it seems that we all assumed you were not interested in doing the job yourself although you did include parts pricing. And we kind of got off topic and perhaps scared you a bit with the rusted on rotor dialogue.

Let us know what you are thinking and and your experience level if you are considering doing it yourself. I, and I am sure others, have some additional thoughts in that case.

As Joe said, commenting on local quotes is usually a hopeless task. I have no practical experience with Midas but I would look at the fine print to see what if any items they can add on.

Finally, been there and done that as respects how many nickels I had to rub together and I'm sure a whole bunch of other forum members have been there at one time or another, so get back and maybe we can help to cheapify (made that up) your brake job.

I appreciate all the feedback. I defintely wasn't scared off. I love this forum and I wear a cup when using the Internet.....you never know where one of those tubes may hit you! Anyway, I see that pricing locally is subjective. I guess I was looking for the cheapest and safest options given the prices I found in my area. I have a moderate skill set with working on cars but I'm not above asking for help. I worked at Subaru as an apprentice for awhile but have been a desk jockey for a number of years now. I feel like I can tackle front brakes so I think I'll try to do them myself. I was only considering having it done if the prices were within a close enough range to the cost of doing it myself. I've read on previous posts about people getting the wrong rotors for our XJ or having issues with mailing back online parts. I was hoping to gleam tips from other peoples experiences and reading through I think I have. I want to buy locally so if the rotor doesn't fit I have somewhere I can take it back to rather than ship it off somewhere. I'm not too concerned with rust as I live in Oregon. My XJ has zero rust anywhere so I think this is one job worth doing myself.

Thanks again everyone. This forum has saved me a good chunk of time and money over the last couple of years.

Take your time, jack up the entire front end and pull both wheels, but only take one side apart at a time--if you forget how something goes its nice to have a "mirror" image to refresh your memory.

Lots of good advice in this thread and a little searching will give you tons more.

Good luck.

98NWCherokee said:

Thanks again everyone. This forum has saved me a good chunk of time and money over the last couple of years.

Click to expand...

Glad we could help, now pay up

:: has saved me $1000+ and taught me more about Cherokees than I really need to know.

Membership is a small price to pay for what we get.

Mike

General tip- Check the brake fluid level a couple of times while pushing the pistons back. Sometimes the fluid runs over.

Good Luck,
Orange

Also, when you put the caliper bolts back in do them with your fingers until you get at least 10 turns on the thread, they an be very easy to cross thread.

So I did the front brakes on Saturday. Thanks again for all the tips and tricks. I don't know why I even considered paying someone to do this. The driver's side took me 30 minutes and the passenger side took me 15. The rotors dropped right off and I found replacements for $24.99 each. I invested in a premium set of pads that were around $65. I used a c-clamp and a flat piece of metal to compress the caliper piston taking time to bail out the brake fluid reservoir so it didn't overflow. Put it all back together and did a few 30mph stops to break in the pads and take off the anti-corrosion coating on the rotor. They stop very well and don't squeak at all. I would say the braking permformance improved by about 10%. I would estimate my old pads had around 20% and the rotors were slightly grooved.

So thanks again and happy XJing