Urgent reply please!!!!

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Deleted member 2277

Deleted member 2277

My daughters Ford KA is 10 years old and I have just paid a garage £35 + vat to do a full brake fluid change. When I picked the car up I asked if they had any problems with the bleed nipples because of the age of the car and the owner mumbled that they just vacuum it out. I have checked the bleed nipples and they haven't been touched. The reservoir has clean fluid in it but they have spilt it everywhere.

Is it possible to to change the fluid without touching the bleed nipples on each wheel?

If they vacuum it out then surely they have to put the new fluid in and bleed each wheel!!!

I'm not concerned about the money but about my daughters safety.

Please help!
 
Wash all the spilt fluid off asap,it will strip the paint

The nipples only need to be undone half a turn to expel any trapped air,aslong as the brake pedal is firm and the fluid looks clean and new I wouldn't worry too much
 
The nipples haven't been touched at all they are still rusted up.
 
They only need to turn half a turn though,it would still be hard to know if they have been moved? They must have bled the brakes if you can see clean fluid in the res
 
No, you can suck out the reservoir fluid and refill it without bleeding the whole system.

Most garages will pressure bleed, which requires the bleed nipples to be opened. If you're uncertain just ask them what they did and take it from there
 
They have not opened any nipples. This is a picture of one of the nipples after the work was carried out. As you can see it has not been touched. I'm not an expert but what ever system they use they have to bleed from the nipples?

 
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Got a better picture? Resolution is too low to see what's going on at the drum

Edit never thought to just click on it...still a bit hard to tell but doesn't look promising

From a safety aspect, to "fake" the job it is highly unlikely they done any more than put fresh fluid in the reservoir which will have little to no impact
 
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This is the front brake



As you can see the thread on the bleed nipple hasn't been touched
 
I think all they have done is suck out the old fluid from the reservoir and fill up with new.
 
Deleted member 2277 said:
Has anyone any experience of this?
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Yes. Try taking the dust covers off the bleed nipples, for a start. Then you'll be more certain as to whether they've been touched or not.

Edit: I see what you're saying. Best to ask the garage what their exact procedure was. If the car drives ok, then I can't see there being an issue.
 
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test it by pressing on the peddle and draining a few ml into a cup. if its dark brown vs your clear new stuff, they have not bothered with it.

I cant imagine they got confused thinking you just wanted a top up either because adding new fluid to the reservoir achieves next to nothing.
 
I clearly said I wanted a full brake fluid change and the receipt says brake fluid change. The brakes were fine before I took the car in. I wanted the fluid changing because of the age of the car as the fluid is hydroscopic.
 
Brake nipples are fragile and typically have stupidly small size hex's on them.

They are also located in a part of the car that often suffers severe corrosion.

As a result old nipples frequently corrode down to a point where a spanner will no longer fit correctly. Either this, or they are so rusted in that attempting to undo them is likely to break them off.

One can try to remedy this by using heat and/or extraction tools but it can often turn into a right ballache. the easiest and most reliable solution is new callipers.

Obviously the garage was reluctant to tell you that you might need new callipers (Oh Look garage ripping me off etc I only asked for a fluid change!)

So they changed the fluid that they could change and charged you (a very reasonable sum actually if it was all in and including VAT, barely more than a couple of beers in terms of actual profit) for this and the time it would have taken to discover that the callipers were probably beyond bleeding.

There mistake is not being up front about it, but even so, I refer you back to the "Oh Noes, Garage trying to sell me new callipers when I only wanted a fluid change" issue
 
Orionaut said:
Brake nipples are fragile and typically have stupidly small size hex's on them.

They are also located in a part of the car that often suffers severe corrosion.

As a result old nipples frequently corrode down to a point where a spanner will no longer fit correctly. Either this, or they are so rusted in that attempting to undo them is likely to break them off.

One can try to remedy this by using heat and/or extraction tools but it can often turn into a right ballache. the easiest and most reliable solution is new callipers.

Obviously the garage was reluctant to tell you that you might need new callipers (Oh Look garage ripping me off etc I only asked for a fluid change!)

So they changed the fluid that they could change and charged you (a very reasonable sum actually if it was all in and including VAT, barely more than a couple of beers in terms of actual profit) for this and the time it would have taken to discover that the callipers were probably beyond bleeding.

There mistake is not being up front about it, but even so, I refer you back to the "Oh Noes, Garage trying to sell me new callipers when I only wanted a fluid change" issue
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He said £35+vat which actually is pretty average. Most main dealers offer a fixed price brake fluid change between £40-£50. I got the brake fluid changed on my old octy vrs at a main dealer for £45 inc vat.
 
I could have changed the fluid in the reservoir myself in about 10 minutes and saved myself money. Looking at the calipers and drums it looks like they have made no attempt at undoing the nipples.

They also fitted a front spring and broke the link arm and hub nut. They took the car out for a test drive after completing the work and then had the car back on the ramps for another hour. I asked if there was another problem and the owner said there was a bit of noise from the wheel but it was just some debris thst had got into the disk. When i was taking the pictures of the calipers i noticed that there was huge amount of black grease around the bearing which looks like they have knacked the bearing and packed it full of grease to make it quieter.

 
Deleted member 2277 said:
My daughters Ford KA is 10 years old and I have just paid a garage £35 + vat to do a full brake fluid change. When I picked the car up I asked if they had any problems with the bleed nipples because of the age of the car and the owner mumbled that they just vacuum it out. I have checked the bleed nipples and they haven't been touched. The reservoir has clean fluid in it but they have spilt it everywhere.

Is it possible to to change the fluid without touching the bleed nipples on each wheel?

If they vacuum it out then surely they have to put the new fluid in and bleed each wheel!!!

I'm not concerned about the money but about my daughters safety.

Please help!
Click to expand...
if I can't or snap a nipple I bleed though a union and push the piston back to get the old fluid out of the caliper. I'm guessing they pulled the res out of the master cylinder put it back and refilled it. No need to bleed even if you let it drip out unless you let the res empty.
 
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