www.ultimatehandyman.co.uk

My car has failed its MoT on caliper, garage has quoted me £300 to do the job, caliper at my local car spares is £138 but in Ebay it is £52, the seller has thousands of reviews and has been around several years, anyone think I am nuts to risk buying the part of Ebay?

For brakes, yes.

I'd strongly consider doing both calipers on an axle at the same time when fitting a new brake caliper and you probably may as well throw new pads on at the same time, and how worn are the discs?
At the other end of the spectrum if I was really trying to scrimp and save I'd get a second hand one from a breakers.
For an ebay purchase I'd price them up at the local motor factors and take note of the make of the part they are giving you a price for then check how that compares to ebay prices for the same make of replacement part but bare in mind than new parts from any manufacturer or supplier can be faulty or somehow the wrong part has got in the wrong box etc. etc. and how much easier it is to get these things sorted out when the shop is 2 miles away than when its 150 miles away.

Check out Europarts for the price and take that as a benchmark. That should give you a good guide for aftermarket makes against OEM parts from a dealer. I think if you are looking to do it on a budget then recycled parts from a breaker will be fine.

DWD

Just a point here, if you have a performance car then the brakes are more important. If it is a Fiesta then a recycled caliper will be fine. A brake caliper is just a hydraulic piston that squeezes the disc pads onto the disc to cause braking. The only thing really to go wrong is if the seals on the piston degrade and it allows fluid to leak by onto the discs causing it to slip and not brake. Brembo brakes on a performance car can have four pistons each caliper. This is a fairly simple job, clamp the flexible brake pipe to minimise fluid loss. The caliper switch is quite simple the important job is bleeding which is best with someone slowly depressing the brake peddle to expel air. Loads of how to videos on Youtube.

DWD

Thanks, everyone.

I know I should do the pads and disks and both sides, but they will have to wait.

Europarts are £250, local parts shop £130, Ebay £52

I had caliper issue in 2017, my car is a 2007 370BHP, dealer price was too high, I bought reconditioned caliper for fraction of the price where I had to send them mine, had no issue to date. They were specialist brake company can't remember the name.

More importantly, are you sure it's caliper problem? It could be collapsed flexi hose which causes brake seizure intermittently specially hot weather or traffic jams, fraction of a caliper price.