q45 brake hardware

[qship96]

replaced front brakes on q yesterday-one shim was badly rusted and unusable,so I put new pad on without a shim-no noticable difference that i can tell so far{250 miles}.today i called 2 local infiniti dealers to get hardware kits,both do not have or regularly stock them! what would happen to all the q`s that come in for brakes like mine that need a new shim,send them out the door with new pads and no shims,or tie the car up a few days while shim kits are ordered? do i need to worry about replacing this one shim if there is no noise issues?

[metaverse3]

some kits don't even have shims.. they come with the pad lube to prevent anti-rattle.. I would not worry too much about it if it does not rattle, squeak, or hum (sounds like a new U2 album)

[Q45tech]

I checked with 3 dealers out of 5 in ATL they all have 10 shim kits or more in stock. We have 5 kits. In fact we have done 5 serious Q brake jobs this week alone.......pads, shims, rotors and in 2 cases new front calipers [remanned].

Some dealers are more worthless than others.

Most dealers have pretty much abandoned the early Q 90-96, as the 2nd 3rd or 4th owners never use the dealers due to labor cost.

[qship96]

what a shame!If Infiniti wants to play with the big dogs,it should force the dealers to carry such basic wear items like brake shims-makes me wonder why I would ever return to the 2 dealers in Baltimore,if they cant even perform a job as basic as proper pad replacement.I doubt the same conditions exists for 90-96 Benz owners at their dealers.

[jtesensky]

Most dealers don't stock the G50 parts anymore. Most owners don't take them to the dealer for service due to the outragous labor rates. If they don't have the in-shop customers coming in they simply won't have the stock. You will hardly ever see a G50 here anymore but we stock damn near eveything for the G50, all thanks to you guys!-Joe

[Q45tech]

Same thing in ATL, the FIVE dealers rarely see 90-93 Q, [the 94-96 are getting rarer also] we {T3} probably gets half the business or more.

I really don't understand the frugality of some owners: If you spend $2500 PRORATED per year at retail, half will be labor so say 12 hours per year, 4 --- 3 hour visits per quarter [including oil changes and tire rotation and balances, alignments etc]..............so say $360 more per year [at a $30/hr increment] for extras provided at dealer vs. an independent.

[qship96]

qtech,are you TRYING to steer work away from T3 these days? LOL.I use the dealer for complicated issues that I feel their familiarity with the model will help fix correctly,but for minor and routine issues,they are overpriced-example-they want 300 for links which I can get from Joe for under 200,or wont sell tension rod bushings,just the whole rod,again using Joe saves over 100,or just last week,they wanted 230 for the bellysheild,joe sent me one for under 150.

[Jesda]

I go to the dealer when I come across an issue I would otherwise have to explain to an independent. Sometimes, thanks to the vast knowledge I gain from NICO, I find myself occasionally explaining things to the dealer. Lots of useful information gets around to techs all over the continent thanks to this forum.