Pace Motors Perth WA - 06 Passat brakes changed

[74Chrgr01]

Had a good experience with these guys on brake changes for my 06 Passat. Significant savings from dealership quotes and they saved me having to replace the rear disks which were still in good nick. They also taught me a few things about how discs and pads wear these days, warning sensors etc.

Yes everyone said go to Golfwagen but I live SOR so that and Balcatta were out. I got positive feedback for Quattro Motors in Burswood from punters who had been there also.
I dscovered a few things in my research which is probably well known to most regulars:

1) The dealerships mark-ups on parts are significantly higher than the independants. I guess this is becasue a lot of them stock their own and therefore have higher overheads.
2) All of them rely on making a good profit on the parts and are unlikely to be interested in working on your car if you want to supply the parts.
3) Dealerships chargeout rates are significantly higher than the independants. I'm still looking but in the order of $20-30/hr at least. That's not a huge amount, but when you consider in most of the dealership you have 2 or 3 year apprentices, getting paid a small fraction of the charge rate, who generally don't care a great deal and are lacking in supervision. That's where the real rip off and consumer risks are - forgetting to put oil in, couldn't be bothered changing fuel filters...etc.

Hope this may help others looking for service/repairs closer to SOR in perth. If anyone has any feedback from Pace or Quattro (or any others SOR) it would be good to hear from you.

[gerhard]

In my business I do not like using customer supplied parts and just supplying labour to install. On the rare occasions I have done this, I have always increased my labour rates by a very large amount, hoping to scare the person off. Sometimes (rarely) they accept, and the job is done.

Reasons

No quality control on the parts that are supplied
Customers who live by this method are always tightar$es and always waste your time, mistakenly valuing it at the same value as their own. They have time to run all over town to try and save $5
Any problems caused by their parts are always your fault, since you fitted them, and the seller of the parts denies liability for faulty parts because they didn't fit them.

A large dealership would be very, very wise to avoid fitting customer supplied parts, because of potential liability when one of these tightar$es crashes because the cheap chinese rotor they supplied shatters and causes a crash.

Best approach is to get a quote to supply and install. I know it often makes sense to buy parts overseas and save 50%, but be prepared to sling the guy who fits them a bit extra and keep him in business

[74Chrgr01]

Couldn't agree with you more. However in this case I was referring to exactly the same parts as opposed to cheaper alternatives. Something off the shelf for $150 at trade I have to pay $258 for. Why is that? There's no additional QA/QC risk taken on by the installer. It's clean profit with no additional service.

[gerhard]

The dealership has to make more markup on everything it sells, simply because their overheads are high.

EG - the brake place can train its staff on brakes pretty easily, there's not much mystery to replacing a rotor, pad, and bleeding the system. The most difficult part is to look up the reference manual for instructions on how to bleed. On my Jackaroo, for example, the engine must be running to properly bleed the ABS system, and there is a bleed sequence. Pretty much any bunny can do brakes.

The dealership has to train all its mechanics to factory levels and keep them frequently refreshed as new models, service bulletins, etc are released. And not just on the brakes - on the entire vehicle systems.

[tinto]

Im in south perth too - I've only had good experiences with quattro motors.
They did my downpipe install(that I supplied) along with a lot of other APR gear they supplied, so I dodged the tight-arse tax mentioned above

Thanks for sharing your experience at Pace, I drive past them everyday.

[74Chrgr01]

Cheers Tinto - appreciate the feedback on quattro...I have only heard good things about them.

[GOLFBALLS]

I can vouch for Pace West Perth, Quattro's and Golfwagen on this stuff because they all buy their brakes from me at hsy. We sell them the genuine Ate parts which are IDENTICAL to the "factory" parts at Audi/VW dealerships, just not in a VAG box.