Thackston Quoted the Brake Job on Paper and Came In $4 Under

Thackston Auto Service did the brake job it quoted at the price it quoted, four dollars under, and that is rarer than it should be. The job was front pads and rotors on a 2017 Accord with 118,000 miles. The car had a grind at low speed and a pedal that had gone soft over the previous month.

I called on a Monday in September. The service writer asked what the car was doing and how many miles it had, then said the first open bay was Wednesday. No same-day work. No waiting in the lobby while they work, either: the shop wants the car for the day, and the lobby is two chairs and a coffee maker that was off. I dropped the car at 7:40 Wednesday morning with the key in an envelope through the slot. The phone rang at 9:15 with a diagnosis and a number.

The number was $412.68: pads, rotors, 1.4 hours of labor, shop supplies and tax. The service writer read it line by line and then texted a photo of the written estimate. I said yes. Nobody tried to sell me a brake fluid flush or a cabin filter. The rear brakes, I was told, had about 40 percent left and could wait until spring. I had measured them the week before and got roughly the same.

The car was ready at 2:50. The invoice was $408.90, four dollars under the estimate, because the shop supplies line came in lower than quoted. The old pads and rotors were in a box in the trunk without my asking, which is the single best thing a shop can do and most do not. The inner pad on the driver’s side was down to the backing plate and the rotors had a lip you could catch a fingernail on. The job needed doing.

On the test drive the grind was gone and the pedal was firm at the top of its travel. The car stops straight. Three weeks and about 500 miles later it still does.

What keeps this out of the 8s. The two-day lead time is normal for a shop this size, but there is no loaner or shuttle, and Anderson Road is a poor place to spend a day on foot. I got a ride. The parts were a mid-grade aftermarket brand, which is what I would have picked, but nobody asked, and some people want the factory pad and should be offered it. The phone went to voicemail twice on Monday before someone answered the third call at 9 a.m.

On price: $408.90 is in the middle of five quotes I got by phone for the same job on the same car. The range was $365 to $520. The low quote came from a chain that wanted the car for two hours and would, in the words of the person on the phone, “see what else it finds.” I would rather pay the middle number to a shop that found nothing else.

Score: 7.3. The paper was honest and the old parts came back in a box. The lead time and the unasked parts question are the gap between this and a shop I would send a stranger to without a phone call first.