It is a bit of a time crunch and no one has front rotors and pads for a Volvo in stock in town, yeah I could have saved a ton of money if I had time to order them from Pelican/DriveWerks but no, so off to the Volvo dealer I go while Katherine calls around for the best price on a set of tires that don't suck. (again, no time to order from Tire Rack).
Volvo dealer get the Pads, Rotors, Shims for pads, and headlight wiper blades (just try getting those any where but the dealer). Get them all, were in stock and the prices were reasonable as Volvo parts from a dealer go. All are clearly labeled with country of origin.
<rant on>
Rotors - CHINA. For the love of god, VOLVO is manufacturing rotors in CHINA? At least ship the raw forgings to Europe and machine and paint enough there to label them somewhere in the western world.
Pads - INDIA.
They make brake pads in India? India makes the best brake pads? What will we do for software support?Shim - Great Brittan. O.K. Maybe they fit a Rover too...
Headlight wipers - South Africa. O.K. Do they have rubber trees there?
What the heck ever happened to the days when you bought a Volvo part and it was made in Sweden, or a BMW part and it was made in Germany, or a Ford part made in the USA, long gone I know.
</rant off>
For the record, before the hate mail starts, I've got nothing against Chinese, Indians, Brits, or South Africans, I'm just a little sick of finding made in China on everything, that and the whole bad milk and lead based toy paint thing.
Now all of the parts do look good, so off I go to install the brakes which goes uneventfully, excepting that the new caliper bracket bolts included with the rotors are no where near the right size, so I clean the originals up and replace them with new thread locking compound.
On to the tires, basically it is Uniroyal's or Michelin's at about a hundred a piece for the Uniroyal's and perilously close to a hundred and a half for the Michelin's. They are at the same place and a review of the ratings on tire rack reveal that the Uniroyal's probably do not fall into the "do not suck" category. I've already lined up my dealer friends for the install. The place has a road hazard warranty, lifetime balance, and so forth for a nominal fee though and that might have some value, how bad can they mess up a tire install right?
<rant on>
Pretty dang bad as it turns out. First of all I explain the whole "new brakes - three bills" deal and tell them per Volvo the wheel bolt torque is 63ft lbs. They nod and say O.K.. So I watch. They mount the tires, paying no attention to any reference marks... I can't see them balance but it I did see the balancer and it isn't one of the newer ones. They lay the wheels out and a guy bangs then on with an impact (no torque stick)
. Then a guy comes along with a large preset torque wrench and checks to make sure they are tight. They are tight, probably about 850 foot lbs from the way knucklehead was hammering. I figure I'll just loosen them up and re-torque in the parking lot. It is pouring rain though and I figure as long as I don't heat them up it is only a few miles to the house. So on the few miles home it is shaking pretty bad about 45 mph. I look it over and check the pressures (all way off) and notice there are 3 different kinds of weights on it, none of which is correct, and the right front has a 1.25 oz on it with a 1.5 oz almost exactly 180 degrees from it (hmm, maybe a .25 oz would have been appropriate). I just take it over to my friends at the dealer and they do it right checking road force and turning them as needed for best match. The Michelin's do have a bit of run out though. (I'm almost afraid to look where they are made.)</rant off>
I guess I've got to buy a tire changer too.
Please don't get me started on the things that pass for mechanics or technicians or what ever they call themselves these days. We have a couple guys in the dealer that can barely read. There are still a lot of highly skilled folks out there who pride themselves in turning out first class work and keeping customers happy. There are also a lot of idiots who couldn't troubleshoot a flat let alone fix it.
, on everything stated. I am 14 years old and still take pride in buying something American made, just as my grandpa would tell me to. At least I know that buying something made in America was put together by a man/woman supporting a family back at home rather than a Chinese kid that thinks $.05 a week is good money. And tire-shops really don't seem to care about requests, there is only one tire shop we can trust right up the road from our house, my dad grew up with AC the owner and we tell him what we need and he takes care of it for us, probably one of our favorite shops out there. Then you go to dealerships with 20 year olds that can't find out how to pop the hood on an older truck 
.
), we had to be able to diagnose ANYTHING with a tach/dwell/volt/ohmmeter, a timing light, a test light, and KNOWLEDGE, and then BE ABLE TO FIX IT OR REBUILD IT !!! Most of the time, I can walk up to anything from a Briggs & Stratton to a Cat D10 dozer and tell what's wrong with it!!!
