I was told by my dealer that my brake pads and rotors were 1mm below volvo safety requirements and they want to charge me $950 to replace them all. Are they trying to hose me, or what?

Unless they changing the whole brake assemblies, including the controller or if you live in New York there should not be such high price.
I think the dealer book calls for about 1.5 hours to change the rotors and the pads. Dealer in NY charges $100 per hours so they would charge about $150 for labor and $800 for parts. Seems like they are screwing with you.
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00 S70 GLT SE

If you know how to change your brakes it could be pretty cheap compared to taking it to the dealer. You can get brembo replacement brake rotors from tirerack.com 41.00(each) and you can get pads from them for about 110 for all four. Four around 274.00 and about a hours worth of work you can have your brakes replaced.

That is WAY TOO much money for a brake job.

I paid from a Volvo dealer for pads and rotors $410 including parts and labor. Unless your are gold plated i think your Volvo dealer is way over charging or smoking some really good stuff...............

I had a similar quote ($900) from my local Volvo dealer. This was for pads and rotors on all 4 wheels.

I opted to do it myself with Zimmerman rotors and Volvo Pads. Total cost in Parts was about $210, plus about 2 hours of my own labor.

I agree with getting only Volvo (or possibly Raysbestos QS pads). Squeal on Volvo brakes is very common when using non Volvo pads.

Brake pads last about 35k miles (front) and front rotors are
good for about 2 sets of pads. New rotors are about $140
a pair and new front pads about $45 a pair at discounters
(www.volvoparts.com). A dealer might charge 20 to 30% more.

Replacing the front rotors and pads can be done in an hour.

Rear brakes are also easily serviced but they last much longer
so they do not need service as frequently (70K out of a set of pads
and over 100K out of the rotors should be doable).

So it is a good chance you need some brake work. It should not
cost $950 though.

You can do the work yourself following the instructions at:

http://www.volvospeed.com/bay13.htm

At least look them over to see what the dealer would do.

If you opt for an independent mechanic find one that is a Volvo
specialist and try to get them to use Volvo pads (which have less
problems with squeeling). I'll note the Raybestos pads have been
mentioned here as also being fairly troble-free, too. Other brands
too often lead to squeeling problems.

On the price, yes. Get some more quotes.

I had some work done today....

New pads on the front
New shoes on the back
2 new brake cylinders
And 1 new tyre.

Total cost = £287

This might give you an idea of the cost...

Hope it helps you,

Tony.