The Amount Of Money You Can Save By Fixing A Lexus Yourself Instead Of Taking It To A Dealer Is Absurd

Brake Job Ts
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I’ve never taken my car to a dealership, and the only time I even go to a mechanic is to get a wheel alignment or to have tires installed (since these require precision machines — yes, the tape-measure method for tire alignment works, too, but it ain’t precise). I do everything else myself. As a result, when people ask me for shop recommendations, I cannot help them, and when they ask me if something is a “fair price,” I once again have little to offer. In my world, vehicle service prices come from the junkyard, car-parts store, or Rockauto.com, and not from a service manager. So when my friend told me she was at the Lexus dealership, and I asked her to show me the service-quote, what I saw made me immediately respond: “Forget that! I’ll do it! Just let me fix your car!” It took a little convincing, but I did some wrenching yesterday on a 2017 Lexus RX350, and it was actually a pleasant experience.

I know, I know. A Lexus RX350; it’s not an enthusiast’s car, sure, but after driving it I’ve come to appreciate it solely because of its “performance of intended function.” The car is nice inside, it rides well, it’s reliable, and it’s actually quicker than you think. My friend loves her car, and I bet most other RX350 owners do, too, so I have to appreciate Lexus’s ability to nail the “comfortable, sensible, no-bullshit luxury SUV” formula. Anyway, this isn’t about the car, really, it’s about the situation. Let’s talk about the service quote:

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That’s $563.58 for the front brakes and $557.20 for the rears. Together that’s $1,120.78 plus tax, so about $1,200 all-in. For a brake job!

I’m not the only one who’s a bit sour about this whole thing. Multiple Autopian writers have been feeling the pain of brake jobs recently. Here are some receipts from Matt Hardigree, who opted for the warranty so he won’t have to pay for this all again:

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That’s $1,100 after tax with a brake flush, so about $450 an axle (plux tax) including the warranties you see above. That’s cheaper than my friend’s $560-ish quote, which really seems to be about the standard. Here’s a quote from the Bishop, who also recently got taken to the cleaners by bad brakes:

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And here’s Mercedes’ wife Sheryl, who had both axles done on her rusty-but-trusty BMW 5 Series wagon:

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Also $567 per axle!

Anyway, I couldn’t let my friend pay more than a Postal Jeep to replace four pads and two discs. Just out of principle. So I bought some of Advance Auto Parts’ best pads and discs for a total of about $380. Add in brake caliper grease and blue thread sealant (which I like to use on the brake bracket bolts), and we’re basically in $400 in parts.

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Then I got to wrenching. The front discs, which are all I’ve done so far, were a joy to do. I have to hand it to Toyota for including a threaded hole in the brake disc “hat.” This allows you to thread in a bolt and us it to press the discs off. This is a big deal for me, as I recently had to WHALE on some Jeep discs to get them off, ruining them in the process.

Look at this cleverness:

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The pads include a pair of springs, which I assume are there to keep them pressed up against the calipers. I’d never seen these before:

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The calipers were dual-piston units; since I only have a C-Clamp and no special caliper tool, to press the pistons back in I just shoved an old pad against both pistons and cranked down on the clamp. It was all so easy, especially since this vehicle has been in California its whole life. The bolts threaded out like butter! I haven’t used my MAPP gas torch in months!

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Honestly, the job was a joy! It took me probably three hours to do the front right, since I took my time and researched all the torque specs, and was very careful. The front left took me only one hour, roughly.

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The rears include an electric park brake, so that requires a little bit of wizardry for the electric motor to all the piston to retract. I’ll finish that off soon:

My friend wasn’t thrilled that I came in with so much grime on my hands on behind my fingernails. I have to admit: This is the first time this has ever been a problem. For basically a decade, grimy hands have been nothing but respectable among my peers. A sign that I’d been wrenching hard. But now I have to figure out how to clean them? Please advise.

Anyway, I saved her $400 so far for something I enjoy doing anyway, and another $400 in savings will be had tomorrow. Absolutely worthwhile for what I anticipate will be about a total of six or seven hours of work. Of course, if this were michigan, that might be 12-13 hours of work, mostly breaking bolts, drilling them out, re-threading them — and don’t forget the requisite 30 minutes for cursing. Those are important.

224 thoughts on “The Amount Of Money You Can Save By Fixing A Lexus Yourself Instead Of Taking It To A Dealer Is Absurd

  1. If you have a place to wrench I’ve found if you even do 50% of repairs yourself it’s a massive savings. I typically do what seems like I can realistically do myself and take the rest to a reputable mechanic-I also would find a good indie shop. Even the Porsche specialist I take my old Cayenne too is $55/hour cheaper than the dealer. I see no reason to believe you wouldn’t get the same spread at Lexus or Toyota.

  2. 0 mm brake pads? Didn’t that screech horribly?

    On my truck there aren’t threaded holes to remove the rotors, but the caliper mounts are positioned such that you can use a nut and bolt to accomplish the same thing. Soooo much better than the alternative methods of removing a stuck rotor.

    Coming from the mountain bike world, I was very surprised to find that springs are not common on car brakes. On a bike you would never let the pads retract just from bouncing off the rotor. I assume on a car the efficiency loss isn’t significant enough, but it seems like an easy win in this day and age of CAFE ratings.

  3. David,

    Thank you for the excellent content – these types of articles help keep you in the wrenching world while still allowing you to keep building The Autopian.

    Two comments:

    1. wear GLOVES! if you feel the need to have touch, wear lightweight, disposal (latex) gloves (and change them often), otherwise a heavyweight latex/nitrile/EPDM glove or mechanix style gloves. Do it, you will never go back – so much easier to cleanup afterwards.
    2. Invest in a good pulley-puller. I have a bunch I inherited from my father & grandfather, but the one I use the most is a modern Craftsman set I bought before Sears went belly-up for about $50. Google suggests the closest to this set is now more like $150 from Grainger, Westward part number 4YT16. By flipping the levers around and changing the bolt holes you use this puller can pull anything from an inch or two to 12″ in diameter or more. It works great for brake rotors without the threaded hole shown here with the Lexus – and you may also want to by a few heavy duty washers to use to protect the axle stud from a little indent from the puller bolt.

    As others have noted, oftentimes the time to schedule and deliver your car to the shop/dealer is as much as doing the job yourself. The other thing that I find is that many shops are likely to screw something up. I keep daydreaming about getting a tire-change/balance setup because literally every time I have new tires put on, the shop screws something up – doesn’t matter which shop I take it to, tire-shop, dealer, local mechanic. I have had countless rims bent, lug-bolts left off, wheels improperly balanced, the list goes on and on.

    If you had time to wait a week, you probably could have saved half again on the Advance Auto parts you bought by searching online for better prices/alternatives.

    One final question for the commentariat – my local dealers always want to do a brake flush on nearly new cars, for instance at 2-years and 24K miles on my “friend’s” Mazda CX-5 the dealer wanted to flush the brake lines. In modern brake systems how much moisture can infiltrate the brake system in 24 months?? seriously – how much? Should I be doing a brake flush at 24K miles when the car is a lease and will be turned-in next year? Seems to me that opening up the system to do the flush could risk getting getting as much moisture in the system than would otherwise infiltrate the system in several years. Any thoughts??

  4. Suspension work can also have quite silly-sounding price quotes too. I know, dealerships gotta pay the bills and make the profits. But $1500 for a front brake job and replacing two rear shocks? No thanks. I think it was right around $350 for parts and a 12-pack of beer for my friend to borrow his (bigger than my postage stamp) garage to do the work in.

    But along those lines, I have seen a proliferation of self-service garages in my area. Pre-pandemic, there was one about 25 miles from me. Now there are three in that same radius, and that original company has expanded another location farther south. A lovely alternative for those who would work on their own but for a lack of space/tools. They even provide orange hand cleaner!

  5. David! The best way to remove grease from your hands is Dawn dish soap and about a tablespoon of sugar. It will also leave your hands smooth and soft, which your friend might appreciate.

  6. Working on California cars must be a dream! I recently did front brakes on my 4Runner, which looks to be a very similar setup. I ended up replacing both calipers too, because New England. Both had seized pistons, and in one of them the pins holding the pads in were seized as well.

    Also, I get wanting to save a friend money, but I’m l always uneasy about working on other people’s cars. It’s not that I don’t know what I’m doing, but it seems like lately every “simple” job has turned into an ordeal lately. My mom recently needed rear brakes on her Caddy SRX, I instinctively offered to do them to be a good son, but almost immediately regretted it. When she told me that she needed them done sooner and was just going to call her (indy) shop, I was actually relieved.

    She ended up getting it done 2 days later, and it cost …drumroll… a little over a grand. New pads, rotors, both calipers, and hoses. I was REALLY glad she had it done, I didn’t want to mess with all that.

    1. Was just saying this to a friend the other day-when I work on my own car I know the risks I’m not a pro and while I’m a fair hand at wrenching sometimes something doesn’t go right or you forget to tighten a nut etc-I can easily go back and fix this but on someone else’s car this makes me nervous.

  7. Aside from blue latex gloves and the orange stuff like everyone has mentioned, I like using GOOP + an old toothbrush for under my finger nails.

    Also, most of the Japanese cars that I’ve worked on for the last 20+ years have had those v-shaped pad locating clips.

  8. My dear sweet David, if you think the Lexus parts are expensive, never ask for a quote on anything Alfa Romeo. My boss requested a quote for front and rear pads and rotors for a Stelvio Quadrifoglio. It was over CAD $7,000!

  9. Did the same for my son’s 2007 Civic this summer. I know the auto repair business isn’t high margin by any stretch of the imagination, but some markups are too much.
    A local mechanic with a good reputation wanted $100 to replace the A/C condenser relay on the same car. That is a $9 part and quite literally takes 2-3 minutes. Absurd.
    At least brake jobs take some effort.

    1. The A/C condenser doesn’t have a relay though. Was $100 for labor or diagnosis, or was the $100 for a flat rate technician trying to make back the time he spent on the “free check”? Remember, they get paid $0/hr, no tip, to “take a look at it”.

      1. We took the car in as it needed a few things diagnosed and fixed, power steering and non-working A/C, etc. The relay was diagnosed as the issue. I was quoted $100 to replace that on the itemized list provided by the shop. I bought a new one at Autozone, unplugged the old and plugged in the new one. Easy Peasy. Definitely not a $100 job.
        Also, quoted $86 to replace one headlight bulb and one tail light bulb. Seriously? Those two combined took about 20 minutes. Only because the driver’s side headlight on a 2007 Civic is a little hard to reach and the trunk lining had to be partially removed to get to the tail light.

  10. For the finger nails, you could wear gloves which stops the problem in the first place, otherwise handcleaner on your palms and force it into the nails by “scratching” your palms and forcing the cleaner in the nails.

    1. I personally hate wearing gloves when working on cars. The basement sink is reserved to clean my filthy mitts. I use that orange stuff for my hands/arms and then scratch a bar of soap to clean under the nails. Those little brushes help too.

  11. If i remember rightly those weird springs hold the pads *away* from the discs. It’s about fuel economy and wear,while still running close tolerances for less free travel.
    Dont take this as gospel though! I’ve seen machines that definitely use springs that way but there are probably other reasons.

    Those bolt holes for retracting are great right? The last few cars i’ve owned also had them on the rear drums.
    Pity they also had those insanely difficult shoe adjusters! Why have easy removal when you cant use it??
    Well,you still *can* use it ,but the slave cylinders will break.Dont ask

    Mechanic’s hand cleaner cream is perfect.Solvent style degreaser works great too, but you’ll want to use soap after to kill the slight smell.
    If you want perfectly clean fingernails gloves are the only solid option.

  12. I notice the Lexus dealer using Tekion for their dealer management software – they’re the company who apparently bought a dealer to run simply to improve their product.

    Curious how well it works versus the established players in the DMS space.

  13. On hand cleaning, if you apply lotion to them before wrenching, the grease & grime can’t penetrate as deeply and comes right off. Counterintuitive, but works like a charm-and you’re much less likely to end up with chapped hands from harsh cleaners.

    I like Udderly Smooth and Working Hands, but any lanolin-based one works. Avoid lotions with alcohols-a surprising percentage of them.

      1. Honestly, I didn’t think of it. Just noticed it during a winter when I was always applying lotion because my hands were chapped & the little cuts/scratches never healed because I worked with old wood in very low humidity environment.

  14. My brother is adept at fixing many things with his vehicles. When his youngest 16-year-old son asked him to do some replacement work (shock absorbers, brake pads, timing chain, etc.) on his Hyundai Veracruz with 3.5-litre V6. One look at the engine bay, he said, “sorry, that’s above my pay grade.” His ex-wife was very furious and demanded he fix it “or else” because she didn’t want to pay the quoted $3,500 at the service centre.

    My late father was very pleased to find out that I fixed his “erratic” air-conditioning system in his E 280 for the grand total of €17 instead of €2,500 at the Mercedes-Benz service centre.

  15. Assuming there’s no Borax or that orange mechanic’s soap at your “friend’s” place (who are we kidding here, DT?), a tablespoon of sugar and some dish soap will work in a jam.

  16. How long until David’s friend gets a noun upgrade in writing?

    My sweetie has an ‘08 Prius – she is 0% car person and this is the perfect car for her. She loves it to death. We call it the Toaster, which is the perfect name for it. As a Prius, it needs very little. Occasionally it needs something. We agree that I don’t need to wrench on it because I have more projects on my own cars than I have time to manage. But occasionally I do something because it just seems ridiculous not to. I replaced a couple of bad headlamp bulbs – kind of obnoxious but at least you don’t have to remove a wheel to do it, as on my old Accord – and she basically saw me like this when I was done and had saved her like a couple of hundred dollars:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54CpPlCnM4I&themeRefresh=1

    1. GenII Prii are lovely things to work on. I had one for years that was a fantastic appliance. Bought it for $1,200, drove it from 206k to 310k in two years, and scrapped it for $1,600 after the cat got stolen. Fantastic vehicle.

    2. How did your friend burn out a lightbulb on a Prius? Most of the ones I see around here are in no danger of doing that because they don’t turn them on… even at night.

  17. My wife has older RX350, and I did the sparkplugs on it. Service manual estimates 8 hrs of labor, and they want to take off the intake manifold. Me, using YT video… it took 2 hrs without touching engine components.
    

  18. I need brakes on my Prius. First time the rear brakes will need service at 150k miles. Fronts lasted to 100k. Can’t complain too much I guess. I’m also inclined to get OEM again since these seemed to work pretty well the first time.

    But the markups and what appears to be an easy job for a pro make me ill, so I’ve considered giving it a shot. Unfortunately my other DIY projects always end up encountering some “problem”. A bolt I can’t budge, some part that doesn’t want to go back in the same way. It is fine on some thing. Not my daily driver.

    So I’ll probably suck it up and go get reamed at the dealership again.

    1. Disk brakes on a Prius are slam dunk easy. Caliper brakes, um, are easy to screw up to the tune of $300 for the dealer. Brake fluid flushing is a specialized shop or dealer thing, not a DIY thing from what I found. If you are familiar and comfy with caliper brakes, go for it, just don’t allow the piston to fall out.
      Oh, if DIY, get Toyota brake parts, not aftermarket ones. I got some once, and they didn’t include all the fiddly bits needed. Other than oil, stick with Toyota parts, including the HV battery, but that is another story.

      1. What makes a brake fluid flush on a Prius a shop job? I’ve done fluid on every car I’ve owned (except my JSW TDI, which is getting it soon) the old-fashioned way, or more recently with a MityVac.

              1. Or “find” a copy of TechStream and an Amazon cable. Honestly, that’s just a good thing to have in case you ever need to troubleshoot something that isn’t controlled by OBDII.

    2. The rear calipers on my wife’s Cmax seized up, apparently from lack of use. Combination of car downtime during covid and regen braking and they just don’t get used much.

      Your Prius sounds similar, thankfully, without the seizure.

      1. One nice thing about the Prius is that it always uses the mechanical brakes under 7 mph. They’re much less likely to get stuck since they get exercised regularly, even if not that hard.

  19. DT: I think you left a very important part of the information out of your article, what was the parts/labor breakdown for each axle from the Lexus dealership?

    1. You should reread the article. There is a large screenshot of a phone with the front and rear breakout from Lexis. And then he says those numbers in the text.

      EDIT. Nevermind. I see that you’re asking parts/labor. I will work on my own reading comprehension.

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