re: Brake replacement charges..lol

Many years ago when I was young and stupid, I had moved to Houston after Katrina and I started hearing the squeal indicators on front brakes on my Mitsubishi Lancer that probably had about 60k miles on it and was about 3.5 years old.

Not knowing any better or anyone, I went to a place called Just Brakes because they had a sign out front advertising they would replace front brakes for $99.99. So I went in. A couple of hours later they called me and said it would be something like $779. I said no and my wife brought me back there. I asked for an itemized estimate.

They wanted to:

replace front brake pads (the 99.99)
replace front rotors (which were fine)
replace back brake shoes and rotors
"Clean out brake lines" which was basically drain and refill brake fluid
Replace front calipers because they were "Frozen"
But the best... they wanted $19.99 for "brake hardware". When I asked them WTF that was, they told it me it was for the clips, you know, the clips that come with a purchase of pads? They told me they sold the clips separentely, or, "we can reuse your old clips but that's not really that safe".

I drove off, went across the street to an auto part stores, bought a Hayes manual and some brake pads and it took me a few hours but that day I learned how to replace brake pads.