Shall we play "guess ALF's bill"?

I got to £3,700.

The alfa dealer has quoted me £3,450 inc vat for the brakes on the Giulia, tempted to source the parts as someone has agreed to fit for about £300. Do you know what the labour charge was on the brakes when you did them through the specialist?

I think Northway Porsche is a specialist, so on that basis £1,450 for the service and brakes (assuming genuine Porsche and not an upgrade you get talked into…), which is cheating a bit as my local specialist which we used for brakes has online menu pricing….

So £2k plus some ‘minor’ bits, let’s call it £2.5k

Servicing, tyres and warranty costs I understand, other than that I really don’t know as I’ve not had to spend anything outside that since front discs/pads on the Boxster back in 2016.

My mind is truly boggled at these figures. My casual trawling of Autotrader looking at used Boxsters has now come to an end. Then again, that Giulia servicing only amounts to 10 new drivers for golf. 

It needs full brakes - I hope after my whining on here you got money off for that 

If I take off the labour for changing the bleed nipples to stainless steel ones (the OEM ones can seize - not that AR dealers will care as they seem to rarely bleed them, and one calliper if they do   ) then the labour on the brake change from AHM was £441. I don't know the hourly rate. 

The parts for the Giulia Quad brakes are silly prices. I'm sure you've seen endless discussion of it but the discs are unique and pretty obvious visually, so while some parts places list cheap solid ones of the wrong size, most are about the same price when its the right thing. The OEM pads are really pricey too, this is where people seem to save a lot, EBC yelllow are used a fair bit. The cheap Brembo ones listed are definitely not the OEM ones and apparanyly feel OK but fade and wear fast. I went OEM as the people I trust (like the AHM guys) rate them and the feel of my old, totally shagged brakes was still superb. I like the feel of them and for the sake of maybe £500 more (I appreciate that's a lot for pads I stuck with it.

 I've had a few cars where I had issues with the brakes vibrating almost all the time I had the car, then bit the bullet and changed them all not long before getting rid, and I was annoyed with myself. The 330i and red Jaguar both had vibration under heavy braking and both times, after OEM replacements all round, they were perfect. This time I spent the cash up front.  

In my case I'm accepting that my cars cost me a lot of money (though there is soul searching as per recent thread) and that I want them "right". Yes AHM charged me a lot, but when the fuel pump failed I dumped it on them the next day. Three days later they had fixed it. Without angle grinding off (and not replacing) some of the rear diffuser fixing points as AR dealers sometimes do. And using parts that only they in the UK had at the time, some at AR dealers had cars still under warranty that had been waiting 5 months for the improved fuel pump and module - parked up in their yard all that time being shat on my birds and with the brakes rusting. 

No one can yet tell me when the new pump and module was standard, it seems a regular fail point for 2.0T cars as well, definitely as late as 19 plates....  

It needs full brakes, its done 28K which seems not far off the normal rate. The dealer thinks I might get another 6 months but I don't drive like I've got miss daisy in the back and they make a bit of a racket already. Rumbling brakes is never a nice feeling. I did get a good deal on the car knowing it needed brakes and the big service so was about 4K less then trade but I wish I'd got more off!! I thought brakes would be 2k tops. 

You really shouldn't.  

It might sound like a decent amount if it's 'cash in hand', but not when you take off all the costs of employment (pension, holiday, sickness, NI) and on top of that the hourly rate includes overhead/fixed cost recovery.

In light of new information I want to revise my estimate downwards to £2,750

The second and third ones down are yes. The solid ones are the wrong size, though various places list them. Prices on the right discs fluctuate a lot, this seems about right from a discount place…

pad prices vary more and there are not the same discount on the OEM ones, though there are some basic Brembo ones that will fit and are cheap. From the feel of them and the way they eat the discs I’d say the OEM ones are some form of carbon metallic pad…

I'm dropping it off tonight (then running 10 miles back along the canal).... Probably won#t pick it up until Friday so we'll see then!

I’ve awoke in an optimistic mood. £2200.

I had an ALF around £5k too

Fiat/Alfa certainly seem to have suspension components out of chocolate. Admittedly my GTA had to cope with Russian tarmac, but it had an insatiable appetite for ARBs and the like. And our Fiat 500 has been faultlessly reliable from a mechanical and electrical perspective, but gets through front suspension parts at an astonishing rate for a car that barely does 600 miles per year. No matter what we fix, it cannot last between successive MoTs without developing another annoying clonking from the front end when faced with speedhumps. We are going to try a new garage this year.

Does the UK have a higher proportion of speed bumps than the rest of Europe?