Hi all. I came across an old thread from 2018 where someone had been charged £900 by Kwik Fit for work on their car, which was in the main un-necessary. I thought I would provide some simple clear advice to help people avoid being ripped off.
Firstly, do not use fast fit centres like Kwik Fit at all, because despite most people knowing they'll tell you your car needs un-necessary work done, not everyone knows this and thus get ripped off. Take your car to small garages, preferably one's which are recommended to you.
One of the biggest scams in the car servicing industry (a speciality of Kwik Fit) is to tell you that you need new brake pads and brake discs when you DON'T. They then charge you amounts like £350 to change your front pads and discs. Brake discs and pads can be bought from Euro Car Parts for most cars for under £70. Fitting them takes a maximum of 1 hour. Even if the garage supplies the parts, the bill for a set of pads and discs fitted to most cars should not exceed £140-£160.
Brake pads will not wear out quickly if you are an average driver. The front generally wear out about twice as fast as the rear because most of the braking force is at the front. My front pads in every car I've ever had usually last for at least 25-30,000 miles and the rears 40-50,000 miles. Unless you are a boy/girl racer, there's no reason why your pads should not last similar mileages.
As for brake DISCS, this is the biggest scam of all. Discs do not need replaced at all unless they are warped, very heavily scored and grooved, or their thickness has reduced to the minimum thickness recommended by the car manufacturer (which you can check by contacting a dealership). I have owned several cars which have covered over 70,000 miles and have NEVER had to replace the discs, so if a garage tells you you need new discs at lower mileages they're certainly ripping you off unless they can show you proof of damage. Damage is NOT light scoring or grooving, that happens to all discs with mileage.
Another scam used is to tell you because your pads are worn, it's best to change them AND replace the discs at the same time. This is utter hogwash. It's perfectly fine to put new pads on older discs. The new pads just 'bed in' to any slight grooving on the discs.
Bear in mind the mileages above when anyone tells you that your pads and discs could be needing changed. Avoid fast-fit centres and use small garages. Even with the latter, it's best to get quotes from at least 2 unless you have a good recommendation.
Hope this helps people to avoid being scammed.