We pulled 14,000 quotes from shops across 180 metros. The spread between the cheapest and priciest quote on the same job averages 41% — here is what a fair number looks like for your car.
A shop quoted my neighbor $780 to replace the front pads and rotors on a 2018 Civic. Three miles away, a shop with a higher review average quoted $381 for the same parts and the same two hours of labor. Neither was cheating anyone. That is the part most drivers find hardest to believe.
Between January and August this year, drivers on Fixamotor submitted about 14,000 requests that included front brake work. Because every request goes to several shops at once, we end up with something unusual: many independent prices for one identical job on one identical car. The average gap between the cheapest and priciest quote on the same request was 41%.
Three things drive most of the difference: parts sourcing (OEM versus aftermarket versus a mid-tier brand), how a shop bills labor (a flat book-time rate versus a per-hour shop rate that varies by region), and how much margin gets built into "shop supplies" and disposal fees. None of these are inherently dishonest — they're just different business models competing for the same job.
For a common sedan with aftermarket pads and rotors, most fair quotes landed between $220 and $340 including labor. OEM parts push that toward $400–$550. If a quote comes in well outside that range in either direction, it's worth asking why — either you're paying for a level of parts quality you didn't ask for, or the shop is cutting a corner somewhere.
Ask whether the quote uses OEM or aftermarket parts, and ask for the labor hours billed separately from the parts cost. A shop that answers both without hesitation is usually pricing honestly, regardless of which number they land on.