Garage snapped off bleed screw. Am i screwed?

Ok so dropped my car in at AUDI yesterday and while doing the brake fluid change they have sheared off the bleed nipple. They have tried to get it out and not snapped an easy out tool in it.

I appreciate that these things happen but its 1500 quid for a new caliper (and a few weeks) so should this cost fall on me? or the garage?

The garage

Garage. Unless there’s something painfully obviously wrong with the nipple or caliper that they can attribute to your abuse/misuse.

The garage, had it on a sump plug years ago, the garage paid to make it right, after a bodged repair intially.

Sounds like the apprentice won’t be getting a Friday cake ;-)

Garage sucks up cost over a short screw error.  :-)

How old is the car? Tbh corroded bleed nipples happen on older cars, and they’re a total PITA. If it’s only a few years old i’d be pointing more at the garage. If it’s say 10+ and hasn’t ever had the fluid changed, if find it harder to blame them.
1500 for a new one is mental unless it’s an RS with 6 pots or something. Have a look on http://www.brakeparts.co.uk and see how much you can get one from in there. I’d also look at taking to an indy as it’ll be sooooooo much cheaper anyways.

If you’re ok with Audi doing it then I’d definitely be pushing for a dealer goodwill contribution first, then possibly escalating to their UK call centre if you can’t get it sorted amicably.

I would have thought so too but they are obviously saying not.

Garage. This is why you pay £95 and hour or whatever the going rate is .
It’s a very easy job for a machine shop to remove the remaining stud of the bleed nipple and clean up the threads .
No need for a new caliper.
Just ask to see the DP if you get any grief from the service department

I think if it’s old  and mega corroded then they have a point.

If it’s not old / corroded and it’s mechanic error then they should pay for it.

Either way £1500 for a caliper is mental. Even if it’s a big Brembo / AP racing type of caliper that price for one feels expensive.

This sort of thing is why I don’t use main dealers.

+1 on how old is the car.

If this is a 15 year old 200k mile car that is one thing. A year old 10k car, then the garage/Audi should sort.

Full set of recon 4-pot/6-pot Porsche Brembos are usually sub £1000 with fittings for Audi platforms so £1500 for a single caliper is taking the piss.

“You bend it you mend it”. Somehow I think an Audi dealer will be able to cope with the extra outlay.

Almost impressed that they’ve managed to kill the caliper instead of getting the remains out

Is the £1500. The entire job price ? New caliper , pads , fluid , removal and replacing with brand new from Audi?
Or just the caliper?

Either way just say no . Unless you’re rolling an RS6 the calipers are around £90 from a factor and that’s branded from Febi or Bendix

If they really dig their heels in just ask them to remove the caliper , get a loaner for a few days and take it to a man in a shed with a pillar drill , a set of taps and a few picks . For a crisp £20 it’s bread and butter for a machinist.
Tannoy# RustyNissanPrarie to the forum please #tannoy

Shearing the bleed nipple is one thing but snapping an easyout in the remaining part is entirely their screw up and on them to remedy.

Edit: no respectable machinist is going to touch that with an easyout snapped in the remaining bit so forget the £20 to drill it out option.

Its on an RS4, there the same brembos as a lambo hence the cost!

its a 2013 car with 68k on it. So well into everythings rusted to heck territory (working my way around it slowly replacing stuff)

If it was already rusted I don’t think snapping the bolt is on the garage, however I’d agree that snapping an easy out bit is their fault. Is it not possible to get the bit back out when it’s on the bench?

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/buying-or-repairing-a-car/problems-with-a-car-repair/#:~:text=If%20your%20car%20has%20been,of%20of%20the%20repair%20damage.

Bleed screw snapping I’d negotiate – this could happen but I would expect them to have the tools and skills to fix. Messing up the repair and snapping the easy out is not “reasonable skill and care”.

I’d still say it’s their problem, if they weren’t happy with the state of it when they started they should have said so. Thus why we pay dealer prices so it’s not our issue when it goes wrong. Snapping the easyout compounded their error.

Be very firm about expecting it all to be put right in a reasonable time or you’ll be prepared to put in a small claims action.

Have you got photos or anything writing. Make a written record of anything you have been told verbally including when and who said it.

My take would be, if it’s been serviced by them regularly to schedule, I’d want help with the costs.

If they haven’t been doing the regular maintenance, not so much.

Brembo callipers = corrosion hell. 50/50 garage and age of vehicle. I’d get it out, but it’d take me a day and the lovely paint on the calliper would probably suffer. It should be soaked in plusgas for a long time. Then some more time. Then I’d be drilling into it with my dad’s ancient wolf corded drill letting the inevitability of its fate take hold at 130rpm. After that I’d have something like the tang of a broken file hammered into it to give mr mole something to grip onto. Amateurs.

What state are the pad retaining pins? I bet the paint around them looks like the surface of the moon.

100% garage should cover the full cost, you’re paying for their supposed expertise.

As above, bleeders sieze into old calipers. The apprentice knows this.

If there’s any doubt, they should simply have got in touch with you, in writing, to let you know that this thing may snap, are you happy to proceed?

100% the garage should resolve the issue. You pay for their expertise and experience.

They should have looked at the bleed nipple and thought hmmm that’s a bit rusty, let’s get some penetrating fluid on there and maybe some heat. Or turned around and told you that it could be trouble and there was a risk of it going south and asked if you wanted to continue. This is where the experience comes into play.

Then when unscrewing the nipple they should have twigged that it was a bit tight and stopped, rather than shearing it off, then breaking an easy out in there. That’s where the expertise comes into play.

I’m not a mechanic but do my own maintenance. If I was doing someone else’s car as a favour and broke a bleed nipple I’d be paying to fix it myself.

Out of interest was it an Audi franchised garage, Audi specialist or a random back street garage?

Obviously it’s the garage’s fault. But my (distant) experience of VAG is that somehow it’ll be your problem. And your cost.

I hope it turns out they suck up the cost. Presumably if you’ve had it serviced regularly there then they could have issued an advisory on ‘sticky bolts’ in the past ‘guv, you should replace that car ASAP as one of the bleed nipples was a little sticky’. Or, even been a bit more careful undoing it.

I’d not be surprised if in some previous VAG-enabled SNAFU they’d cross-threaded it, kept quiet, and hoped you’d have changed the car by now.

Waiting weeks for it to be fixed? That seems weird. I’d have expected these parts are just hanging around in the supply chain waiting to be shipped.

Its on an RS4, there the same brembos as a lambo hence the cost!

My millionaire boss ran a RS4 for a while – it’s the only car he’s got rid off because of the running costs. Bloody extortionate.

Quite common on old brake callipers, try and ask for a new calliper at cost price and go to an independent Audi service garage to get it fitted.

Personally after owning various hot Audis, I always used independent Audi garages for servicing as main dealers are not known for their expertise on old models.

I’m confused. Did they break an easy out tool in it or not? If they did they probably didn’t drill it out to a suitable size before trying. Did they take the caliper of the car and do it on a pillar drill suitably clamped or did they try in situ? Bleed screws break off, with the right approach you can always get the remains out however corroded and seized.

Its on an RS4, there the same brembos as a lambo hence the cost!

Years ago I looked at a 4y/o RS6, the V10.

Checked the service pack & receipts – fully documented and there was a recent £2k bill for new discs & pads.

I walked away as I’d not long before I’d paid £100 for new front discs & pads on my Omega 3.0i MV6.

11 year old car?

50:50 and I bet they argue the toss – there may also be something in their T&C’s about this stuff happening.

Bit of a tangent, but how do bleed nipples end up so stuck? Isn’t brake fluid supposed to be changed every couple of years, requiring the bleed nipples to be opened? I did a caliper rebuild on my 10yo A6 recently, and the bleed nipple took a nervewracking amount of force to undo, leaving me wondering how recently it was last loosened.

As for the OP, did they contact you before botching the fix with the ez out?

Bit of a tangent, but how do bleed nipples end up so stuck? 

I would imagine because they are in a dirty exposed place with loads of heat build up and subsequent cooling down.

Brake fluid should be changed regularly – at least every two years

If the nipple was stuck you never brute force it – you stop and think.  You warn the owner, you use heat and penetrating fluid

Snapping an easy out in it?  Wrong tool for the job compounding their error

You can get the easy out removed by a process called spark erosion.  Might save the caliper

Its up to the dealer to sort this to your satisfaction.  contact head office if they refuse.  If no joy then letter before action and fast track( small claims) court

Sorry – but on an old car, it’s just what happens.  Had you tried to remove/loosen the nipple, the same would likely have happened.

Unless you can someone was heavy handed, It’s your problem.

£1500 for a calliper?  Really?

Sorry – but on an old car, it’s just what happens. Had you tried to remove/loosen the nipple, the same would likely have happened.

That’s why you pay through the nose and take it to a garage. So it’s not your problem.

I think if you have a recent record of the brake fluid being changed by the same garage (so they were the last people to touch the bleed nipple), you stand a chance of getting them to pay for it in full.  Otherwise I’d be looking for a discounted caliper and pay for half the labour to fit it.

I got my independent specialist to fix a leaky gearbox for free, (a £600 repair), as they’d serviced it a year before and it was unreasonable for it to leak in that time-frame.  It probably helped that I’m a repeat customer for them.

The trick in these disputes is to seem happy but firmly trying to negotiate.  As soon as you seemed annoyed or start threatening Small claims, the garage know you’re never coming back so they’ll stick to their guns, so only go full bore as a last resort.

That’s rubbish.  If something is seized/broken its broken.  Just taking it to a garage doesn’t solve that or shift the blame.

Any good garage will tell you this.

Its on an RS4, there the same brembos as a lambo hence the cost!

In that case, suck it up and use some of the budget you normally set aside for running a car like this each year.

Certain cars are like this – my transporter of a similar age and mileage to the Audi suffers from corroded bolts underneath. Before doing anything with it I’m usually ordering replacements in the knowledge that something will snap or I’ll need to get brutal removing them.

Compare that to my old Mini Clubman and my current Merc that I was underneath at the weekend replacing the springs on and every bolt is as clean as a whistle and dead easy to remove (11 plate on ~65k miles). Maybe its just a VAG thing…

The garage should pay – easy outs are made from hardened steel and shouldn’t be anywhere near a stuck bolt for the very reason that you have experienced – when they snap they made the job 10x worse. They have cocked up the extraction and are now trying to get you to pay for it. Any half decent mechanic should have no problems removing seized/sheared bolts, it’s standard fare for a garage – you don’t just bill the customer for a whole new caliper.

You could give the chap a call (Dean) – I got refurb calipers for my Civic Type R from him – they were as good as new ones…

https://www.facebook.com/p/DS-Caliper-Refurb-100076338725065/

I read that as not snapped an easi out in the broken part. Not ” and they then tried to remove it , and snapped an easi out in the broken part.

So no , a man in a machine shop would probably swerve that as the easi out will be hardened,
So the bit is likely to deflect into the caliper body.
Theres a stack of RS4s on eBay being broken, perhaps a quick email round robin to see if you can get one for a couple of hundred and chance your arm the main stealer will GW fit it for you.
thus giving you time and accessibility to carefully remove the bleed screw from the used part

I’d be strongly arguing that it’s blindingly obvious it could be corroded and seized, so the garage should have tackled it accordingly and used heat / cold and penetrating fluid to loosen it once it was clear it wasn’t budging with normal force.

Snapping a tool in it afterwards was just incompetence squared.