Garage snapped off bleed screw. Am i screwed?

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tjagain
Full Member

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 garages stopped and asked you every time something was seized up and there was a risk of shearing it, nobody’d ever service a 10 year old car again. “Hello, it’s us again, yes as we mentioned the first 3 bolts at were corroded and at risk of shearing, well you’ll never guess what, so is the 4th and the 5th and the 6th…” Pick up tool, put tool down, make call, customer doesn’t answer, take car off lift, customer calls back, every job takes 19 days.

If you want the brakes doing then the nipple needs cracked open and that means a risk of breaking. It’s not something you can just not do (welllll you can halfass it by bleeding it at the banjo, but you shouldn’t, more likely plenty of garages would just not do the job)

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.

Keep us informed! Fingers crossed for you!

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.

As it happens I have, my Mondeo’s lower arm bolts were seized, M10 IIRC. It took a 1m breaker bar and me basically pushing the weight of the car up to start shifting them and an 800Nm impact wrench to pull the head off.

Had a Civic before that, I learned the trick where you use a jack on a spanner on that.

I’ve also had brake bleed nipples seize, same story. I put the wee spanner on and it wouldn’t shift, no joy so I used a lot of plus gas and a short 1/4 driver and got it off. Like I said, there are ways and means of doing this that don’t involve jamming hardened steel in a hole and compounding an already bad day.

No idea why but this thread popped into my head earlier.

Did they sort it for you?

Yeah, update please – I’m intrigued :o)

Ah ok, sorry for not updating.

Soooo its fixed. Im not 100% convinced but its driveable and not squishy.

They took the caliper off and to an engineering shop. It took them a day to get it out and then a day to put it back together but this was over a weekend. I did have a service plan so was supposed to be a no cost service but it cost +90 quid for the brake fluid change and +180 for replacing the bleed screw. I swallowed this as i thought it was fair enough.

On putting the caliper on they did want to keep it for a few days as they said they were struggling to bleed it. As soon as i asked for a courtesy car it was ready. My worry is that they didn’t bleed the inner set of pistons (there are 2 bleed screws) that would be needed after removing the caliper and they would only use one when changing the fluid.

Anyhow car back and driving great. Much happier

Hmm. Fixed price servicing right up until the point things go wrong eh? Why am I not surprised? (VW owner)

…but not £1500+ so glass half full eh?

Put a can of Plusgas on your Christmas list.
Then every few months pop off the alloys , give them a deep clean and squirt each nipple. Won’t hurt and you can keep an eye on pad wear , tyre wear and prevention maintenance is never a bad thing

DelFull Member
Hmm. Fixed price servicing right up until the point things go wrong eh? Why am I not surprised? (VW owner)

Fixing a snapped bleed nipple isn’t part of a service. I’d expect to have to pay for something like that.

The Audi service plan is fairly decent value* ime, not just because it’s only a few mins from my work

*Disclaimer – not idea what it’s like for an RS

They stuffed it up, we are where we are.

They agree to fit a second hand caliper which you source and give to them. They free the bleed nipple on the bench, before fitting…..

You think it’s good value? You (we!) are paying about 200 quid for a stamp in the book, a ‘clean’ a blind man would do better, and about 40 quid’s worth of consumables. ?

Don’t get me started on the markup on oil…

Those showrooms aren’t paying for themselves!

(I know, I know, if you don’t like it. etc)

Anyway I’m glad the OP got his car fixed.

Glad it got fixed, seems like a fairly pragmatic resolution for all parties.

DelFull Member
You think it’s good value? You (we!) are paying about 200 quid for a stamp in the book, a ‘clean’ a blind man would do better, and about 40 quid’s worth of consumables. ?

Just paid £150 for a service + MOT on an old Focus. So service + mot (car is now 4 years old) + warranty + breakdown + convenience (from the dealer being in a better location for me than an indy) for whatever ££ makes a lot of sense in my situation

andybrad

On putting the caliper on they did want to keep it for a few days as they said they were struggling to bleed it. As soon as i asked for a courtesy car it was ready.

Mysterious.

Just paid £150 for a service + MOT on an old Focus. So service + mot (car is now 4 years old)

4 years is not an old Focus! £150 for all that lot sounds good value though. Must have been a small service.

The Focus is 10, the Audi is 4

I just booked my Ovlov in for a major and MOT today. They wanted, wait for it, £700 of your post Brexit British pounds! I shit you not. It’s a V90 not a golden w@nk chariot with hot and cold running women…

I managed to get them ‘down’ to £500 which is still bloody silly. I expect many sexual favours, 4 tyres and much fawning for that…

give them a deep clean and squirt each nipple.

I swear to God, everyone has better evenings in than me.

You do know that the service manager is on a decent salary plus commission?
A decent trained main dealer tech will be on over £30k , plus bonus if he gets through the work quickly.
A large main dealer will have a head honcho on , depending on marque and location £70k plus bonuses.
So every person involved in fixing your car has a personal vested interest in making sure it costs an arm and two legs every time you set foot in the door.

You also missed that the techs are on commission for anything extra they find that the customer agrees to add to the job. I’m sure the service desk staff will be too

Absolutely they are . The basic salary is good, but the hours can be very long . They will be on commission/ bonus for up selling anything that might or might not need doing, or is found by the mechanics.

Just to add. I thought the garage handled it very well and this was a reasonable outcome. While, yes id rather it not cost 300 quid im also in the fortunate position that it happened over a weekend and was able to re arrange tings to have minimal impact. The fact that the service manager was on the phone to an engineering shop and a brake refurb specialist before i phoned was very impressive that they took ownership and were looking for a resolution.

Yes it costs a fortune and the plan is 27 quid a month. Ive since cancelled this as im working in Halifax now and theres CM tuning around the corner (RS specialist) so will take it there next year. As for the consumables there is a significant RS tax on this car. So much so im considering swapping it for something with lower running costs, Like an old aston martin!!!!! but its absolutely brilliant and im struggling to do so. Definitely one of the most capable (fun is different) cars ive driven. for example the air filters are 125 quid each! and theres 2 and thats from autodoc never mind a main dealer!

You also missed that the techs are on commission for anything extra they find that the customer agrees to add to the job.

Must be a good commission, Shark wanted about £120 a corner to do discs and pads on my Focus after they identified them needing done on the service.

I had a lengthy chat with a time served BMW tech I know a couple of months ago. The top techs are on low 40s, when they can get them. No mention of commission, either for the techs or the service desk. No more open workshops for ‘homers’ at the weekend. They can’t get staff and experienced guys are leaving to go to independents or set up their own. More recently they’ve had to offer above the salaries of existing staff which as you might imagine has gone down like a shit sandwich