June 23rd 2006

We get a lot of phone requests for estimates of repair.

Most of these requests are politely handled, but we know going in, when someone is phone shopping for prices, before we've
even seen the car, that we're competing with a $40 an hour service station or a weekend technician, moonlighting from a dealership.

One group we won't deal with is those who wish to bring their own parts for us to install. We're probably the tenth garage that the
fellow has tried and we've all said no - emphatically. After all, would this guy take sandwiches to a restaurant and then ask for a
glass of water? I don't need to answer that.

Just lately, however, one request for an estimate raised my attention level considerably. It was for a complete brake job on an Infiniti
G35 coupe with the optional Brembo brake system. And thereby lies the rub. When I called my usual suppliers, I was quoted $700
each for rotors and $ 224 each for pad sets. This means we're into $3300 in parts before we even start work. And to add insult to
injury, the parts were not even available for the standard shift model.

"Dealer only" - the phrase which every consumer should dread in a case like this.  It turned out that this particular car owner had
already had the job done for a sum approaching C$5000 including taxes, but was then told by his friends that he'd been ripped off.
Actually, he hadn't been, not at least, in the service department. The salesperson that sold him the car might well be to blame,
however, for not informing this man that the value of this option was going to be so costly down the road.

Just like the sticker shock that people get when they start to shop for snow tires for 18" wheels. ($1800 if you're lucky).

Asking myself what I would have done in these circumstances, I consulted the internet. An American outfit in Seattle known as Import Replacement parts, (www.importrp.com) quoted me US$340 for rotors and US$120 for pad sets. Not so bad.

In Canada, www.canadianbrake.com quoted front pads at $143, rear pads at $101.00, and rotors at $420 each.

So under these circumstances, we would have waived our "no customer supplied parts" rule and suggested that the client get
his own parts and we would install them.

In the same week, we scanned and analysed a 1998 Pontiac Venture which started up just fine, but after driving for a while, the
ABS light came on. A scan test and much tracing back of circuitry established that the fault lay in a defective abs/traction control
module. Dealer only, again and $1800 to buy. So guess what? There goes another vehicle without ABS brakes.

One of many, many on the road.

The automotive media keep bleating on about cars that offer ABS brakes only as an option, but in the Great White North, ABS
brakes are a questionable advantage at best and car buyers should be given the option. Instead of that, we are being loaded up
with more and costly "features" that are going to result in vehicles going to the great car graveyard in the sky very prematurely,
due the prohibitive cost of repair. Hybrid buyers beware.

Coincidentally with our experience, the following article appeared in the New York Times this week, reinforcing my
caution to be careful what you wish for...................

By KEVIN CAMERON

"CHECKING boxes on an option list can quickly run up the price of a new car, but few add-ons are in the league of the ceramic brakes
on a Ferrari F430: at US$16,808, they cost about the same amount as a nicely equipped Honda Civic.

The high-tech brakes, an option on the US$172,505 F430 but standard on some other Ferraris, are an upgrade for steel discs that
already deliver impressive stopping power. Only those drivers who spend weekends on the racetrack are likely to notice a big
difference in performance.

Car-savvy pedestrians may take note of the owners selection, though. Instead of a metallic gleam visible through the spokes of the
alloy wheels, they will see discs that look like patio stones.

Porsche was the first automaker to use ceramic brakes on a production car; in 2001, it offered discs made of a novel ceramic
composite material to reduce the weight of a special sport model. Several Porsches now offer them as an option; on the
Cayman sports car they cost US$8,150.

Brake discs, also called rotors, of similar ceramic material are optional on the Audi S8 (although not yet in the United States).
The US$210,000 Bentley Continental GT Diamond Series will also be equipped with ceramic discs.

Why replace steel discs, which have served well for many years and are easy to make?

Using a ceramic composite takes advantage of a material with outstanding hardness (and potentially long life) and an ability to
retain its strength and shape at temperatures that would melt conventional iron brake material into a glowing puddle.

Simple single-ingredient ceramics tend to be brittle like dinnerware, though some types work well in turbochargers or as bearings
for jet engines. To make ceramics that are tough enough for a brake disc, the material is manufactured as a composite:
strands of carbon fiber, which are highly resistant to stretching, are embedded in the material, using a process developed by the
Mitsubishi Chemical Company.

Today, ceramic brakes are of interest for their performance advantage — maintaining their stopping power even when extremely hot.
But because ceramic discs will last four times as long as iron ones, according to automakers, their use could increase.

More important, ceramic discs weigh about half as much as iron discs — a valuable benefit for handling and acceleration.

There are other good reasons to seek lighter, more durable brake disc materials. Since the introduction of CAFE — the federally
mandated corporate average fuel economy standards that an automaker's fleet of models must collectively meet— there has been
strong pressure to reduce the weight (but not the cost) of automobiles.

As a vehicle accelerates, its rotating parts require more energy to accelerate than nonrotating parts like seats or engine blocks.
This is because they gain energy from both their accelerating forward motion and from their increasingly rapid rotation.
This gives brake discs a special importance in fuel economy.

Because so much driving is stop-and-go, and because it takes more fuel to accelerate a heavy car than a light one, reducing
weight can help automakers meet the CAFE standards.
Heavy steel brake discs are a favorite target of weight-conscious auto engineers.

As discs have been made lighter, their average operating temperature has risen, leading to more rapid pad and disc wear.
Braking force increases with disc diameter, so any attempt to remove weight by reducing disc diameter also lengthens stopping
distances. Carmakers sometimes compensate by installing higher-friction pads — which in turn may wear more rapidly.

Discs from the pre-CAFE era included extra material that allowed worn discs to be machined one or more times and re-used.
Today's lighter discs have little extra; often, they must be replaced when worn.

Brake pads designed for use with ceramic composite discs may contain ceramic powder along with metal in the form of wire
or particles. The ceramic provides the hardness to resist wear while the metal forms a so-called "transfer coating" on both the
pad and the disc surfaces during the break-in period. Much of the friction generated between the pad and the disc occurs
between and within these metallic films.

To permit safe brake operation at very high disc and pad temperatures, the hydraulic pistons, brake fluid and seals in the brake
caliper must be insulated from the heat. This can be accomplished by installing heat shields, assuring good circulation of cooling
air over the parts and blocking the path that the heat would travel.

Aircraft and Formula One racecars have the luxury of a more expensive solution: the carbon-carbon discs seen in dramatic
racing photos, glowing red or even bright orange under hard braking. Discs and pads made of this material are able to
operate routinely at temperatures that would melt most metals.

The carbon-carbon name is engineer-speak for a material consisting of two forms of carbon; crystalline carbon fibers of immense
strength, reinforcing a structure of amorphous carbon (like the solid black carbon found in the brushes that carry electrical current
in a motor or generator).

The carbon-carbon manufacturing process is enormously expensive — carbon-carbon discs cost thousands of dollars, but in racing
their benefits are worth the price. Not only does braking improve, but the low weight of the disc mass lets the racecar accelerate
slightly more quickly.

Such light discs can absorb large amounts of energy because their temperature can safely rise much higher than that of iron discs.
Unfortunately, wear is fairly rapid and brake torque is limited at low disc temperature. Still, for aircraft, a pound of weight saved is
a pound of payload (and revenue) gained, on every flight.

Ceramic composite disc materials are a big step in the right direction, costing only about one-fourth as much as carbon-carbon.

That may persuade more high-end automakers to offer ceramic brakes, which could help to reduce costs and make them available
on more car. "

It's going to be a frosty Friday before these materials come close to matching the low cost of normal steel rotors,
but I have to agree that anything that can overcome the enormous problems of rust build up on discs would be a
major step forward ....... but NOT at any price.