I could well understand the price if it were done at a Mazda main dealer - I had mine done on my Mazda3 mk1 and they cost a similar amount (I'm presuming a pair). Mine needed doing because, even though the car had only done (at the time) about 60k miles in 11 years (a year ago), it has had long periods of low use (once a week/fortnight) over the years when I've travelled to work by train or been out of work, leading to binding brakes and warped discs. Its often a judgement call as to how often to use a car (if this was the cause in the OP's case) vs costs of fuel against repairs/replacements of brake parts.
In my case, I now (as well as to keep the battery in good nick [that's £150 a pop for a quality replacement nowadays!]) run the car for a good 2x 12 mile run down the local dual carriageway to the shops in the next town once a week in colder, damp weather and once a fortnight in warmer, drier weather. I think it does also depend on the car/make as well - binding/warped brake discs seem to occur more on Japanese designed cars than other makes, perhaps because they are owned more by elderly drivers who use them less, maybe its a design flaw.
Either way, if I were the OP, Iif they did low mileage like mine, then up the usage a bit, especially in conditions like we have at the moment, but also check with reputable local indie garages to see if they can use either Mazda brake parts (assuming the 'failure' isn't a scame to drum up business - if it can be driven, get a second opinion [on both issues you've raised]) or at least genuine branded OEM equivalents, which may save a reasonable amount, plus the cheaper fitting costs. I wasn't so bothered as I didn't know of any local indies that I could guarantee this, and could afford the cost at the time (not so bad for once every 11 years, even if it had 'only' done 60k miles).
Edited by Engineer Andy on 22/01/2018 at 11:48
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