You’re correct of course.
One way to tell if a good resurfacing job is being done on rotors is to pay attention to how long it takes to surface one.
Even a mildly warped rotor that only requires a few cuts (or passes) should take about 15-20 minutes. It can take 10 minutes for that final SLOW pass.
A moderately or severely warped rotor can take half an hour or more unless the person doing it likes to peel off .015 at a time on each side.
If some guy is running rotors through the lathe at the rate of 1 every 8 minutes you can safely bet it’s a poor job.
I always make a test drive part of my brake inspections and pay very close attention to what the brakes are doing. Most of the time, if the actual measurement of the rotor thickness is within .030" of the minimum machining or discard spec, I will suggest turning the rotors. If it’s less than that I require replacement. I have had some really cheap customers who only wanted a pad slap, even though I only charged $15 to turn both rotors, but I don’t understand why. For my own vehicles, I actually prefer to turn all drums and rotors, even new ones, just because I find I get a much better surface than the factory finish. I’ve also seen some cases where I had to turn new drums on customer’s cars before I could let it go due to violent pulsation caused by the threaded finish. It was mostly on Caravans, Windstars, and Tauruses.
Well if all mechs test drove the car properly and also made repair recommendations based on facts then a lot of confusion/paranoia could have been avoided. The problem for the regular costumer is that they get a quote for pas change, drop the car off and get called for the need for rotor replacement. The additional price would not be what you would pay extra at napa or autozone for a pair of rotors. They are inflated due to shop costs/warranty etc. So no matter what the costumer thinks he/she is being taken.
I have used shops before when too busy to work on the car or due to lack of space. But I have had a general idea of what my needs are going to be, have gotten a quote for all possible scenarios.
One time I had a rotor that was stuck on this Kia, this was due to a screw rusting in and I didn’t have a torch, drill etc to deal with this. I talked to the shop owner and provided my own $20 rotors assuming all liability for the rotor going bad.
