brakes cost for a 2005PT cruiser

Or charge you more. Premium pads are higher now than ever and shops will buy you a set of cheap pads and charge you about the same as premium pads, so buy your own if you want the good pads. Not a bad idea to replace the hardware too.

where would be the best place to purchase the break pads to get the best deal???

I use rockauto.com if I have a few days, It only take them a about 2 days to get to you. Otheerwise if I need them now I go to O/rielly as we have near me a Auto-zone which May be cheapest but have had less good results from and we also have The original owner's store of westwood auto parts but they are about 20% higher for the same parts but he always has OEM parts and hard to find parts that chain stores do not carry, so I go there for OEM hard to get or find stuff. To be frank about it since buying from rockauto.com unless I need something that day I use rockauto, and the last brake rebuilt parts I did came from them and was here the next day. Drums, wheel cylinders pads, shoes, springs, adjusters ect everything I took off went back new. There were cheaper than all the places that sell brake stuff by about 20% and I checked online the other stores and went into O'rielly got a full price and did not include the spring set and they were higher so if you have a few days check out a few places and include rockauto.