Before you've even touched a lug nut, you've probably already priced out a brake tool kit online. Some of them run close to $300 once you add a jack, stands, a torque wrench, and a decent ratchet set. Good news: you don't need to buy any of it for a basic pad swap.
Renting a bay by the hour here includes the whole shop, not just the lift. So the real question isn't what to buy before your appointment. The gear's already on the wall, waiting for you to grab it.
What's already in the bay
- A 3-ton floor jack and a jack stands set to get the car up and keep it there safely
- A 24 in. breaker bar for lug nuts that don't want to move
- A 1400 ft-lb impact wrench if you'd rather not lean on the breaker bar all afternoon
- An 18 in. torque wrench and a torque limiting bar set to put those lug nuts back to spec
- SAE and metric sockets, wrenches, and hex keys sized for whatever's holding your caliper and bracket on
- Torx bits and sockets too, since a handful of cars use Torx bolts on the caliper bracket or splash shield instead of a hex head
That covers most of the job. Check the full tool inventory before you book if you want to confirm we've got the exact socket size your caliper bolts need. Odds are good we do.
One thing we don't stock
Compressing the caliper piston back into its bore is the one step our shop equipment doesn't cover. We don't carry a C-clamp or a dedicated caliper compression tool, so bring your own. It's a cheap tool, ten bucks or so at any parts store, and it's small enough to toss in a glovebox. Honestly, this is the part people forget. Then they either make a mid-session parts store run or try to improvise with a pair of pliers. Don't do the pliers thing. It works right up until it doesn't, and it's usually you underneath the car when it stops.
How long this actually takes
A front-only pad swap goes fast if you've done it before, closer to ninety minutes. Add the rear and budget the full three hours, especially if your rear calipers use a screw-in piston instead of the simple squeeze-back kind up front. That's a slower job even for people who've done a dozen of them. Three hours lines up with the cost breakdown on the homepage, where a 3-hour bay rental comes to about $150 total. Book through the reservation widget, pick Provo or West Valley City, and since both locations run 24/7 you're not stuck working around a shop's posted hours.
Before you're on the lift
First-timers have to watch the required lift safety training video. Short video, no skipping it, and no staff walking you through the lift controls in person either. Nobody here teaches the repair itself, so you should already know how to swap pads (and bleed a caliper if the job calls for it) before your bay time starts. Bring your own pads, rotors, and hardware too, since the tools and the lift are covered here but the parts are on you. Check the FAQ page if you're wondering whether you can extend your booking when the job runs long. That part's flexible, as long as nobody's booked the bay right after you.
Pack light. A brake job doesn't need a trunk full of gear rented from three different places. Bring your parts, bring a caliper tool, and let the bay handle the rest.