Problems with your brakes?

A friend of mine recently called me to ask me how much it was to get new brakes installed. I told him that there are usually three levels of brakes they offer, the cheapos at around $80, the mid range around $120, and the super expensive brakes around $160. Of course, those are just very generalized amounts. They could be much less or much more. I'm only guessing. Of course, I wouldn't know because I change my brakes myself. They're only ridiculously easy to change. They require very little "specialized" knowledge and no special tools. They require that you jack up your car, put them on jack stands, take off your tires, unbolt the brakes, pull out the old brake pads and slap in the new ones. Then put it all back together. Now, I don't blame people for having it done. It will cost you $30 to $50 for the brake pads and it will take about an hour of your time. You can get it done faster if you've streamlined the process or if can take longer if you take your time or aren't sure of what you're doing. It takes me about an hour. Anyway, my friend was concerned about going to get his brakes done because they always try to hit him up with extra stuff every time he goes to get anything done on his car. He doesn't know much about cars, so he is never sure if he actually needs it or not. He is generally not the type who is going to work on thier own car, so he isn't going to want to do his own brakes, unless it was going to save him several hundred dollars. I told him to go and get his brakes done, but if they tell him that they want to change his rotors, to run from there and come to me. I had my rotors changed once. I couldn't believe how ridiculously expensive it was. They charged me $150 for each rotor, just for the part, then they charged me another $100 of labor. Absolutely ridiculous. I had no idea how easy they were to change. Seriously, if you're changing your breaks, they can just fall off if you're not carefull. There is nothing holding them in except for the tire and the brakes. Once you have both off, the rotor just pulls off. I changed my rotor for $60 each for the parts. Easy, easy, easy. Most things on your car can be easily changed yourself. So, if you want to save a ton of money, buy yourself a repair manual and go to town. If you know someone handy around cars, invite him over for some beer and have him supervise you.