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General Dealers fitting your own supplied parts

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General Dealers fitting your own supplied parts

oncepastthepost

oncepastthepost

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So, I've recently picked up my 500 and loving it. It's a 1.4 sport 08 plate, 20k mileage. (Pics as soon as the sun comes out). I'm new to all this so please bear with me - this being my first car.

Took it to the local kwikfit for a free brake service and they tell me the front discs will need replacing - the warning light hasn't come on yet. They quoted £260 parts and labour.

I've done my research on the forum and I'm going with 306maxi's advice and found some brembos from www.nextdaybrakes.com (~£100) and before i place my order I ring my local dealer to see how much they would charge to fit them. I got the 'we will not fit parts that you supply. We only fit our own parts.'. They are charging £160 parts and labour.

Is it common that dealers will only fit parts they supply? Am I labouring under the misapprehension that you could source your own parts and dealers could/would/should fit? Do some dealers fit your own supplied parts and others don't?

Thanks
 
twocokes said:
Took it to the local kwikfit for a free brake service and they tell me the front discs will need replacing - the warning light hasn't come on yet. They quoted £260 parts and labour.
Click to expand...

First question should be, "Does it really need new brakes!!!!!!!"

Some dealers might not fit 3rd party parts I guess. If they don't want to, go to an independent.

But firstly, find out if you really need new brakes!!!!! Kwik Fit should NOT be trusted.
 
Thanks for the response 306maxi.

In all honesty, apart from the brake light coming on how do I (a punter) tell if i need new breaks? They sound a little like metal grinding when I brake but nothing significant.
 
If you have only just bought it im guessing it had an MOT before you picked it up? If it did it wont need new discs and pads yet.

On my last car, after the 5th year service the garage told me it would need new discs and pads in the next 1000 miles. I kept an eye on the brakes and got another 6000 miles out of it before replacing the parts myself.
 
In your boot is a jack and a wrench for removing the wheel, whip one off and have a look. If the discs haven't got an obvious raised edge around the rim, they don't need changed. If the pads have more than 2-3mm of friction material left on them, they don't need changed.
 
As stated, take the wheel off and have a look. But exercise caution in placing the jack, to avoid damage to the sills. Actually Kwik-fit may well have already bent them for you.

But I don't agree with the poster above; the only way to ascertain the disc wear is with a pair of calipers to measure their thickness in several places, and refer to whatever the stated minimum is (someone on here might be able to help with that).
 
Eklipze3k - so that's what those bits of metal in the boot are for :doh: :D

bgunn - The guy at KF did show me the raised edge on the discs and mentioned that the discs were a few mm below standard - i thanked him and walked away. I can see the raised edge and feel it but I can't tell if it's too much or too little - and I don't have a pair of calipers to check.

I think I might leave until the brake light tells me otherwise.

As for getting 3rd party parts fitted at the dealer - the dealer's price sounded reasonable compared to KF. I was curious to know whether members have experience of dealers fitting parts that you supply because I note that chris@souls does service packs. At some point in the future I would considr buying said packs and taking them to the dealer.

When it comes to the brakes I'll go the independent route and pick up those brembos ;)
 
Last edited:
pearce_jj said:
As stated, take the wheel off and have a look. But exercise caution in placing the jack, to avoid damage to the sills. Actually Kwik-fit may well have already bent them for you.

But I don't agree with the poster above; the only way to ascertain the disc wear is with a pair of calipers to measure their thickness in several places, and refer to whatever the stated minimum is (someone on here might be able to help with that).
Click to expand...

Yep. I'm going to be ordering myself some calipers soon. The Fiat dealership said my brakes need changing and tbh I don't think they need doing.
 
pearce_jj said:
But I don't agree with the poster above; the only way to ascertain the disc wear is with a pair of calipers to measure their thickness in several places, and refer to whatever the stated minimum is (someone on here might be able to help with that).
Click to expand...

With experience, you can intially tell if a brake disc is worn, by looking at its inner and outer edges. The OP isn't complaining about brake judder, which needs a DTI to find the cause of.
 
twocokes said:
Eklipze3k - so that's what those bits of metal in the boot are for :doh: :D

bgunn - The guy at KF did show me the raised edge on the discs and mentioned that the discs were a few mm below standard - i thanked him and walked away. I can see the raised edge and feel it but I can't tell if it's too much or too little - and I don't have a pair of calipers to check.

I think I might leave until the brake light tells me otherwise.

As for getting 3rd party parts fitted at the dealer - the dealer's price sounded reasonable compared to KF. I was curious to know whether members have experience of dealers fitting parts that you supply because I note that chris@souls does service packs. At some point in the future I would considr buying said packs and taking them to the dealer.

When it comes to the brakes I'll go the independent route and pick up those brembos ;)
Click to expand...
The brake discs only have 2mm between new and worn
 
A couple of other things to mention, the Brembo discs have 2 wear indicators on them. When 1 is gone it means the discs are half worn, when both gone it means the discs are 100% worn. Makes for far easier checking of the discs than with a caliper as you don't need to take the wheels off.

If it were me I wouldn't wait for the brake light as the indicator is only on one pad out of the 4 on the front and it doesn't indicate the state of the discs at all. So you could have 3 bad pads and two discs past their wear limit......

Personally I'd buy the discs and pads, get an indi to check and if necessary replace the discs. Brembo stuff will be better than OEM stuff anyway :)
 
The dealer who will not fit aftermarket parts is not too far out of line, if its a Fiat dealer you are talking about.

Under their franchise with Fiat they are only allowed to fit Fiat parts to Fiat cars. Car manufacturers parts, particularly brakes, are not to badly priced at all. Fiat and the dealers know that owners were going elsewhere, so prices were 'adjusted'.

As said above, don't trust kwik fit, and get an independant to fit the psrts if you wish, however

Expect the labour bill to be slightly higher as the garage has got no profit on the parts.

Cheers

D
 
twocokes said:
Is it common that dealers will only fit parts they supply?
Click to expand...

A dealer that does this these days wont last long, also next time you get brakes or exhaust/clutch etc fitted chances are it is a locally sourced pattern part.

mjsmke said:
If you have only just bought it im guessing it had an MOT before you picked it up? If it did it wont need new discs and pads yet.
Click to expand...

mmmmm, not strictly true. What VOSA deem to be acceptable (to pass an MOT) is not what brand or dealership may think. It's a common issue and one that ends up with the customer thinking the garage is trying to rip them off.

pearce_jj said:
the only way to ascertain the disc wear is with a pair of calipers to measure their thickness in several places, and refer to whatever the stated minimum is (someone on here might be able to help with that).
Click to expand...

calipers are no good here, you need a micrometer.

rallycinq said:
Under their franchise with Fiat they are only allowed to fit Fiat parts to Fiat cars.
Click to expand...

within warranty (2 years)

rallycinq said:
As said above, don't trust kwik fit, and get an independant to fit the psrts if you wish,
Click to expand...

Maybe in the past but I have been doing some research and kwik fit have ploughed millions into training and will soon have nearly 100 master technicians:eek:
 
TBH, most of the profit any garage makes is on sourcing the parts themselves, and you'll find most will not fit customer-supplied parts for that reason, plus it can cause them grief regards to guaranteeing the quality of the parts and whether they'll last.

Granted you may be buying reputable parts, but some people will buy the cheapest and nastiest components which fail prematurely (I've known one Tech who replaced the same wishbone three times because the balljoint repeatedly failed after a few weeks before he convinced the guy to buy a genuine item which lasted).

bgunn said:
With experience, you can intially tell if a brake disc is worn, by looking at its inner and outer edges. The OP isn't complaining about brake judder, which needs a DTI to find the cause of.
Click to expand...

Granted, a wear lip on the outer edge is the first sign the disc is wearing, but the only way to accurately determine if the disc is near or at the recommended minimum thickness, is with a micrometer/caliper.

Whenever I suspected a disc was cause for concern, I'd record the measurement on the jobcard as proof (to cover my own backside, plus in case they wanted a second opinion). I wouldn't trust someone who merely looks at a disc and says it's knackered, unless the disc is severly worn-down of course.


OP- what did they say the disc and lowest pad thickness was?
 
D4nny8oy said:
TBH, most of the profit any garage makes is on sourcing the parts themselves, and you'll find most will not fit customer-supplied parts for that reason, plus it can cause them grief regards to guaranteeing the quality of the parts and whether they'll last.

Granted you may be buying reputable parts, but some people will buy the cheapest and nastiest components which fail prematurely (I've known one Tech who replaced the same wishbone three times because the balljoint repeatedly failed after a few weeks before he convinced the guy to buy a genuine item which lasted).



Granted, a wear lip on the outer edge is the first sign the disc is wearing, but the only way to accurately determine if the disc is near or at the recommended minimum thickness, is with a micrometer/caliper.

Whenever I suspected a disc was cause for concern, I'd record the measurement on the jobcard as proof (to cover my own backside, plus in case they wanted a second opinion). I wouldn't trust someone who merely looks at a disc and says it's knackered, unless the disc is severly worn-down of course.
Click to expand...

My local independent aren't fussed about fitting bits that I've supplied. Only issue I've had was accidently ordering solid discs instead of ventilated ones for the back of the Subaru. They happily fitted the balljoints, bushes, droplinks, rack ends, tie rod ends, pads and front discs that I supplied and got the right discs in when they realised the ones I'd ordered were wrong.
 
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