Garage snapped off bleed screw. Am i screwed?

At the very least, before letting the trainee mechanic make a complete mess of it, they should have contacted you beforehand explaining the situation.

Snapping a tool in it afterwards was just incompetence squared.

Very much this.  ~£100/hr for complete incompetence .

If the garage have tried to extract a bit they snapped off with an easy out (rather than giving you a better chance of a specialist removing it) without asking you first then I think they should make some contribution towards the replacement.

Although it would probably be cheaper to pickup a reconditioned caliper yourself and they should fit it for free as they’ve messed up your old one. Are they 8 pot calipers?! Looking online there seem to be quite a few that are claimed to be reconditioned for a lot less than £1500 each.

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

Agree, if they phoned the OP and said “there;s a rick this will break, it’s old and corroded, do you still want us to try”

If they just went ahead and broke it it’s on them

The bleed nipple siezed on one of my calipers, the garage phoned me and said “it’s siezed, if we continue it might snap and need a new caliper, do you want us to proceed?” – I said “well the pedal’s gone long so it needs doing” – they tried, it snapped and I ponied up for a new (fortunately inexpensive) caliper.

If they informed and asked you it’s on you, if they just waded in and broke stuff without informing you that they might it’s on them.

Yep, like sobriety – a couple of years back the garage (marque indy specialist) was doing a fluid change for me while the car was in for other stuff – they called me up – “RH rear bleed screw is seized – we’re not going to try and deal with it unless you really want us to”. I didn’t, and spent a couple of hours with pen. fluid and a blow torch at which point it wound out nicely.

Their problem to solve. Surely the right answer as soon as it won’t move  these days is one of those induction heater things and get it proper hot. Easyout is never, ever, the right tool IME.

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

the garage were heavy handed – they sheered it off and then broke an easy out in it.

You say ham fisted they say corroded… Still drivable right? Personally I’d remove from their grasp and sort with a specialist.

A quick Google reveals companies that will fix for about £40 up to £100 if they have to drill and helicoil.

Easyout is never, ever, the right tool IME.

Like any tool it has its uses. Used with caution it’s a compliment to all the strategies mentioned by myself and others on the thread. If you have to resort to drilling it out, at some point as you increase drill size you’ll see threads appear. If the drill hasn’t gone straight down the middle increasing the drill size further will damage the threads and then you’re looking at the added complication of a helicoil. If it’s broken flush or down the hole you’ve got nothing to get any purchase on. At that point more heat, lube and an easy out used gently should get the remains out.

A colleague bought a RS4 recently (2014). Within a couple of weeks it was making a slight droning noise, he suspected a wheel bearing. The garage had it back under warranty, said it wasn’t the wheel bearing and changed all 4 discs and the pads (under warranty). Noise was still there, took it back again. It was a wheel bearing after all.

AUDI can be absolute robbing shysters, but in my experience they are not up to the fight if you make it clear that you are not a fool and that you are not going to pay them any more than you have to. South Hereford AUDI tried to add £1,500.00 to a bill for me and it ended up being an additional £0.00 when we established that I knew as much about the job they were doing as the Service Manager. Prior to that the stench of bullshit was incredible. Mr. Service Manager was “not at the branch” when I came to collect, leaving a minion to bring me the car. Coward.

I’d be strongly arguing that it’s blindingly obvious it could be corroded and seized,

I wish. Some of the worst I’ve dealt with in 30+ years have looked OK. I always covered my rear, by explaining to the customer, that there was a slight chance that the nipple would shear off and require extra work, that might require a replacement caliper. Never had to replace a caliper though.

As for using an easy out . . NO! Left-hand drill bit is always the best solution. I’ve a drawer full of various versions and they do work on bigger bolts, all they do on small stuff is expand the bolt/nipple and force the threads in tighter.

Left hand drill bits, I didn’t know they existed. Thanks for that Marko. If ever I get into messing with cars again a cobalt set will be on my shopping list.

Its an easy job for a machine shop to remove the broken nipple, they will/should cover it.

The garage were heavy handed – they sheered it off and then broke an easy out in it.

1. Shearing off a seized nipple isn’t incompetence.  It’s really difficult to know when it’s going to let go and they require surprisingly little force to shear.  2. Breaking a drill bit when deep drilling something small and steel also isn’t hard to do and again, it’s sometimes difficult to know when it’s going to bind.  Let me ask you this?  When you last drilled out a bolt, did you use any fluid?  What is slightly concerning is that they tried to use an Easy out for a seized bolt, not a stripped or cross threaded bolt.   LHDB is what I would’ve used, but, IME the calliper would still have likely needed additional repair/tapping even with a LHDB.   They were likely trying to avoid this as the calliper would then need to come off and the brake system would need re bleeding at yet more cost to the customer.

I still say it’s just one of those things and that if it were on a  cheaper car, we wouldn’t really be arguing.  But equally, all of this should’ve been explained to the customer beforehand.

It wasn’t broken when it went in, they didn’t contact him to say it might be an issue. It’s on them, it’s what they (should) have business insurance for. At the very least they should be offering a a profit and time charge free replacement solution. They appear to have charged to break it and then be looking to charge to fix it too.

shearing off anything is being heavy handed.

Let me ask you this? When you last drilled out a bolt, did you use any fluid?

I’ve never drilled out a bolt.  I do (almost ) all of my own mechanicing and never needed to.

When you last drilled out a bolt, did you use any fluid? 

When I drill anything made of metal , will always use a cutting oil or paste. WD40 specialist multi purpose cutting oil is my go to.

Trouble with most main dealer “mechanics” these days are they are mostly “technicians” with very little experience in proper engineering methods when it all goes tits up. Just remove and replace until the problem goes away 😉

Snapping a bleed nipple on old brembos happens. Its what you do next that matters, and communication with the customer.

Remove the caliper and drill out the bleed nipple (I use a milling machine). If you dont know how to do it, you take the caliper to a machine shop and pay them to remove it (especially on a £1500 caliper)

Its still fixable, but easy outs are rather hard.  I have used a carbide end mill or burr at max rpm and really slow feed. EDM is a good option. I might also try TIG on the easy out.

My take is that I would pay what it would have cost to fix the snapped nipple using their approved method and to their usual standards but I will not pay to rectify their mistake.
If their spanner had slipped while trying to extract it and destroyed the front wing and headlamp, would they have charged you for their replacement?

Why is this even a discussion

The garage has broken it. It wasn’t broken when you took it in. It’s their problem to solve.

Shearing off a seized nipple isn’t incompetence. It’s really difficult to know when it’s going to let go and they require surprisingly little force to shear.

It’s what, M7, M8 or M10? It should take a hell of a force to shear one, certainly more than you’re likely to put through an 8 or 10mm spanner.

That’s why you start easy, if you can’t shift it with the short tool then it’s time to take a step back.

This is a game of two halves IMO

Breaking it off in the first place almost certainly means it was seized when you took it to them, ie it was already knackered, it just wasn’t broken but that’s like having already crashed but not yet having landed. Possibly they could have done more to extract it safely but equally, it’s entirely possible they did all they could or all that was reasonable and it still broke. And you can’t prove whether they did or didn’t. So I think that’s basically straightfoward, the problem isn’t really that it broke, the problem was that it was seized enough to break, they just happened to be the people who found it. (whoever last worked on the car might be part responsible but that’s a losing battle)

But the easy-out has made it worse and that’s on them. That’s amateur hour imo, especially on an expensive part. Should have got it off the car at that point and approached it properly. Having said all <that> I don’t agree at all that it’s automatically unfixable at that point, sure the hardened tip is now a total bastard to handle but it can often be handled. Though here you really need to see it to judge- is it going to be realistic to weld a bolt on, frinstance, or, how much easyout is still stuck in there, is going to make a big difference.

So that’s the exact line i’d be taking with them “I understand that things break especially on cars of this age, the problem is not that it broke, it’s how you’ve responded to that”.

Nortthwind – the garage should have said to the owner that it was seized and there was a risk of sheering it before brute forcing it.   If the owner then agreed to them attempting the removal That would then reduce the liability.  to just go ahead and brute force it without warning and then compounding it by breaking an easy out in it – just sheer incompetence and they are liable for fixing it.  Using an easy out shows their lack of skills.

Yeh, I agree, it snapping is one thing, and arguably not thier fault, but making it worse with what sounds like a failed botch IS on them.

That’s the angle I’d take.

New free caliper, or they have the existing one machined properly to rescue it, at thier expence.

If I took my car into an actual main dealer, and something went awry, then it’s their responsibility to sort it out, not mine – I’m paying them to know exactly what they are doing.
Although, my experience of taking Audis to a main dealership for recall work, parking it and telling them where I’d parked it, in a marked spot opposite the workshop entrance, then having them deny actually having received the car, when we phoned to ask how it was going, which meant me having to drive down to Salisbury to sort it out. After another couple of our logistics staff had driven down, and I’d told them where I’d parked it.

I arrived, told them who I was, having already seen the car exactly where I had parked it, and was told to go and sit down, to wait for a member of staff to come down to see me.
I saw a bloke come into the reception desk, speak to the receptionist, then disappear out the door, in the opposite direction to where I’d left the car. After a while, he came back in, spoke to the receptionist, then disappeared again. The receptionist looked at me, still sitting there, then the bloke came back and spoke to the receptionist, who pointed to me, so he wandered over, and said they had no record of the car. Now, this was the bloke who had accompanied me to check the car over, with a check-list, when I dropped it off, so we went outside, and he started to turn left out the door, so I said, “no, it’s not there, it’s over there”, pointing to the car, “it’s right there!”
I would have done a facepalm, the sheer incompetence I was seeing in front of me was breathtaking. They had a number of RS3, RS4’s parked up and in the showroom, and honestly, I wouldn’t dream of taking a car to be worked on or serviced by them, just unbelievably poor service.

I mean It’s not a £100 Pagid caliper from ECP where you might just shrug your shoulders and just bang a new one on, it’s a £1500 part from what sounds like an official dealer, they should know better.

It’s what, M7, M8 or M10? It should take a hell of a force to shear one,

Unless, of course, it were hollow.

All this ‘I’ve never sheared a bolt’ stuff – ever worked on a 90s Japanese car? Once things start corroding (like a steel thing to an aluminium thing -they never get corroded together on bikes, do they? 😉 ) you can have a hell of a time getting them apart.

submarined – I am obsessive about this sort of thing.  Any new bike I have had is stripped and every thread given the appropriate stuff – thread lock, grease or copaslip.  Even my Shand was stripped and got the treatment tho actually it did not need it

I have not worked on Japanese cars but have done on old jap bikes.  Bolt is stuck – thinking about getting the big spanner out?  Stop and think

I bust a couple of bolts when a kid yes by overtightening them -0 the actual question was about drilling them out.  Never had to do that

find a stuck bolt?  If it does not come out with a reasonable amount of force then its penetrating oil leave and try again.  Still not budging – heat and more penetrating oil.  I have never had this fail apart from an exhaust stud on my BMW – and once the head broke off and the tension was off then it came out OK

If I did snap one of flush it would be off to my local machine shop / engineers to sort out

I’ve recently serviced the Brembo 6pot 17z (£450) calipers on my near 20 year old Porsche.

Aluminium and steel? Plenty of localised MAPP heat followed by Würth Rost Off. A few heat/cool cycles followed by a final heating to expand the aluminium (coefficient of expansion works in your favour with this one) and they came out okay.

New nipples, ceramic anti seize, and I apply a little waxoyl to the nipple/caliper interface.

Snapping a stud extractor? As mentioned above, EDM or possibly cobalt and a bollocking/piss taking for the apprentice.

RNP – a main dealer will never do that with a painted calliper on a customers car.  Most main dealers for the major German marks are now £120-£150/h + VAT.  So the labour costs normally outstrip the parts cost very quickly.  Perhaps not in this case (but then I don’t know the cost price of this part).  But even with this, stripping, heating, disassembling,  repainting, and reassembling and releasing will be what?  4-5h?  So the best part of £800-£1000 on Labour.  I was recently quoted £3400 to do the brake lines on my 21y old BMW touring.  The parts are £212.

Years ago I was at a scrap yard, they had a lad cleaning up various bits and bobs – part of his job was to glue the stick welder electrode onto snapped fasteners, and use the electrode as a handle to wind them out. The whole process took him less than a minute each time. Wouldn’t that work even with a hardened easy out included?

So a call from the garage. The service dept have been quite proactive and im impressed tbh. Taken the caliper to a local engineering firm and will pick it up on monday. Then see what the damage is.

part of his job was to glue the stick welder electrode onto snapped fasteners, and use the electrode as a handle to wind them out

??

Stick welder electrodes are feeble …

Good timing from Mustie!

You need Nipple Therapy… http://www.fraserbrowneng.co.uk/index.php?c=nipple-therapy-kit

How does a LHD drill bit help? Is it the idea that the increasing friction from the bit will help undo the seized bolt as the middle is cut out?

Easy outs are utter rubbish anyone who has been a mechanical fitter will tell you this, there might be cases where its worked but no one with a modicum of experience knows they are a bodge

3 way benefit IME:  1) As you go to drill out a stuck bolt, it can (sometimes) extract the bolt. 2) As you get closer to the thread, it’s less likely to follow the tread and damage it further, 3) As you get closer to the thread it can start to extract bits of material from the existing bolt.

The LHD will heat up the part, start to drill into it then will bite and wind the part out.