What most people forget, is that you have a choice to say no, buy the parts,
and do it yourself, as the OP did here.

Midas, Monro, Pep Boys, Meineke, and a host of others all now subscribe to
MAP, a set of rules that they must go by in order to be accredited, that
simply states they must tell you what they find. It doesn't keep them all
honest, but most basically are honest guys just trying to make a living, and
doing it on commission.
Most people perceive it to be a load of salesmanship, and in some cases it
is. But, if they see something in your brakes that is dangerous, and don't
tell you, then you have an accident, they can be liable for not bringing it
to your attention, and get sued.
It is a catch 22 for them.
The price they gave you, while high initially, was for "loaded" calipers.
That included a complete caliper with pads and hardware. It would have come
with a lifetime warranty, including labor. If you plan on keeping your truck
and driving it for a long while, it would have been much cheaper in the long
run, but not in the short term. Everytime you wear out your pads, you get
the complete caliper all over again, as long as you own the truck.

Just my .02 c

Spdloader

The calipers on the rear had worn out rubber dust boots and the technician
said he had to apply a lot of pressure to move the pistons when removing the
pads during inspection.  They did look bad, but I really don't know if he
was giving me a line or not.  They were not leaking.  I figure for a couple
hundred extra bucks I can get a quality rebuilt caliper loaded with pads
from NAPA and do the install myself.  The brakes are "weak" - even though
the pedal travel is OK, I have to mash them with tremendous effort to get
decent braking when pulling a 3 ton trailer.

John

I don't recall the replacement muffler requiring everything be fixed for the
deal. I can see replacing the pipes, and hangers if needed. I'd tell them to
just do the muffler so shop around for a cat.

I didn't mean to write a novel, but I just wanted to share my experience
with one of these mechanics who lives near me and actually worked (mostly
out of shop) on a vehicle given to me.

FWIW, before my grandfather passed away a year ago and his 1983 Ford F-150
was passed on to me, his neighbour used to do most of the repairs to the
truck.  At the time, this neighbour worked at Speedy Muffler as a "mechanic"
(I'll use that term very lightly as I refer to him).  He was renting the
trailer that was located on my grandfathers land, and I should also mention
he was and still is, a complete alcoholic.  Calling him a hillbilly would be
nice in his case, but he was generally a user who took complete advantage of
my grandfather and nobody in my family can stand him to this day.

Seeing as how this truck was bought only when it was a year old, it was not
used alot.  Mainly for my grandfathers travel to work, which was only around
10 km a day.  It has very low mileage, right now the odometer only reads
105,000 km.  It also has one of the toughest engines built by Ford, the 4.9L
inline six.  But, when it was not used, it normally ended up parked in the
grass.  It was painted last year before he passed away, and the floor was in
great shape.  However, because he used to use it for hauling junk, bails of
hay and general farm usage, quite a few of the body panels needed replacing
in the painting process.  It also needed the rear leaf springs replaced, the
carburetor (apparently) needed replacing, and it had the common fuel gauge
failure (it still does, actually).

Needless to say, this neighbour "mechanic" ( I refer to him as Ace) was
asked to fix/replace the leaf springs, so Ace did this in exchange for rent
payment about three years ago.  When you look at the truck in my yard, it
leans to one side by probably two inches, and on a hoist you can tell that
the spring pack was taken apart and some of the old leaf springs were
reused, while some were replaced with new ones.  Unfortunately, Ace
obviously cannot count, because there is one additional leaf spring in the
passenger side.

The second repair he was asked to make was the carburetor.  Now, when the
truck was given to me, I knew that it usually started quite well,
considering its age, but that it never really idled all that great.  So you
can imagine how suprised I was when I lifted the hood to find a brand new
carburetor with parts missing and a wire tie tied around the choke linkage
holding it wide open all the time.  There was a screw missing from the idle
plate and I think the reason the choke never operated correctly was because
the spring element that activates the automatic choke was missing
altogether.

But I really had to laugh when I attempted to figure out what was wrong with
the fuel gauge.  The gauge stopped working about 2 years ago and Ace decided
he was going to take the dash apart and find that "broken wire" that he
claimed he knew was causing all the problems.  When I got underneath the
truck to drop the tank, I noticed the gas tank was brand new (I don't ever
recall anything being wrong with the old tank, I know it never leaked) and
when I dropped it down, I also noticed the sending unit was new.  There was
so much hi-temp silicone between the sending unit base plate and the gas
tank, that the metal between the two parts wern't even touching each other.
The funny thing is, he used the brand new rubber gasket between the sending
unit and tank, so I really have no idea what the hi-temp silicone was there
for.  Now keep in mind that the fuel gauge still doesn't work despite all my
efforts, but after I cleaned the silicone off the two parts, the gauge
actually did work for about a day or two.  My guess was that the sending
unit was not properly grounding through the tank, but seeing as how it
stopped working again, I'm still not sure what is wrong with it.  I suspect
that the sending unit he used was quite a cheap part because there was a
fair amount of residue on the intake pipe when I cleaned it and put it back
together, and it really just looked like it was manufactured cheaply.  I can
also tell from taking the dash apart that he's had his hands in there before
because of his sloppy wire splices that he used on his aftermarket fuel
gauge (that one never worked either, AFAIK).  Needless to say, there was
nothing wrong with the wiring to the old gauge inside the dash (except that
he cut both wires at the firewall to run the old wires to his aftermarket
gauge).

In no way do I believe that I am a perfect mechanic myself, but I do know my
way around a vehicle.  Enough to fix some of his stupid mistakes and to make
that truck run at least twice as good as it did.  The more I work on that
truck, the more of his mechanical work I find.  At one point, I almost
wanted to set the truck at the end of the road and sell it because of
something he did to it, and my attempts to repair it correctly.  Don't get
me wrong, I have nothing against this truck, in fact, I always told my
grandfather after he was gone, I would be happy to take care of his truck
for him.  And I also know that these trucks are far beyond the quality that
Ace turned it into, any old Ford truck like that I've seen has always been
tough and I know alot of guys still driving their old trucks, favoring them
over the new vehicles you see today.

AFAIK, Ace still works at Speedy Muffler, but he may have tried to advance
his career by being hired by Midas Muffler.  I know he works for one of the
two, just not sure which one.  Either way, you'll never see my vehicles
parked near any of the two, or any other place like that.

Sharky

You have to remember that they have stockholders to feed. The home office, a
CEO, all that overhead. Who pays those huge salaries? Hmm?