Aside from vehicle modification and dash cam installs, we also carry out regular maintenance work! Our long time customer recently picked up this A7 and knew the brake pads had to be replaced. While it is okay to replace just the brake pads, the notion (and recommended action) is to replace the brake rotors as well.
Our customer asked us for a quote, in which we sent one with different options for brake pads and rotors. While we could order "Genuine OEM" parts (Original Equipment Manufacturer), our quotes generally consist of parts from parts companies that make the OEM parts for these Genuine OEM brands and some OE equivalents. The customer opted for Textar brake pad, rotors, and sensors, all of which are OEM parts for Audi just without the Audi branding. The front brake pads we quoted were $135 versus Audi's $274 MSRP (found on Audi parts website).
We rarely quote OEM parts as they have big markups from the vehicle manufacturers. Another example compared to the above, a F3X 3 series (2014-2019) front brake pads from BMW retails ~$300 before taxes. Our quote (at the time of this post) for a pair of Textar's (OEM parts manufacturer) would be $220 before taxes which is about ~35% cheaper than genuine OEM.
Some companies that come to mind would be Akebono, Beru, Denso, Hengst, Mahle, Mann, and Textar. These companies produce OEM consumables such as:
- oil filters
- brake pads, brake rotors
- spark plugs, ignition coils
- cabin air filters, engine intake air filters
Nowadays, all vehicle brands outsource their parts as it lowers their costs, and results in a market for different brands to sell parts standalone cheaper for the general consumer. A "Genuine Audi" oil filter is in reality rebranded from potential manufacturers such as Mahle, Mann, or Hengst.
Another note is some vehicle manufacturers like BMW claim that their transmission fluid in their ZF8 and DCT's are lifetime fluids, but effectively that means up until the transmission fails (which could be caused by not changing out the fluids). Some of the vehicles we've done these flushes show some small metal shavings in the pan.
If you are looking to get some regular maintenance work done on your vehicle (whether it's for oil changes, air filters, brake services, or more) don't hesitate to use our Mechanical Service Request Form and save yourself a decent amount of money versus going back to dealerships and paying those hefty markups.
To add to this post, we've had customers bring us quotes from dealerships, see examples below:
- 2014 VW Jetta was quoted by the dealership for ignition coil + spark plugs a total of over $1100 and we ended up doing the job with Denso and BERU parts (OEM manufacturer for some VW parts) for roughly half the amount. The dealership said the car was not safe to drive even though it was mainly just the spark plugs misfiring and billed the customer for towing fees
- Multiple Tesla owners have told us that Tesla quotes them a minimum of $300 for 4 wheel alignments, while we start our alignment services for $150 before taxes with the renowned Hunter Hawkeye Elite alignment machine