It is a well known trick of the trade to offer free inspections and then "find" things that need to be repaired, so you always have to take care. But i was not expecting this:
Failure to pass the inspection.
Cost to bring into compliance: $1000
Extra repairs that I should get done: $500.
WTF? Do I have the words "FUCK ME" tattooed on my forehead in invisible ink?
The main culprit, if they are to be believed, is that the front brake calipers are locking up. The fix is to replace all the calipers, pads, rotors and brake line hoses.
For a frozen caliper? Can't we just "unstick" it?
The easiest way to "fix" this is to just take it to a different mechanic and re-inspect it hoping for a better outcome. But on the off-chance that a caliper really is frozen, it behooves me to take care of it. It goes without saying that the re-inspection will be somewhere else that doesn't already believe the car must fail unless I give them $1,000.
19 comments:
I have ordered the Haynes repair models for the vehicles I am responsible for.
I don't think you can unstick a caliper that is sticking. Had that once, and I had to replace it. I don't know if they recommend doing both sides at the same time or what.
Here in South Dakota we can drive whatever piece of crap we want.
I've "unstuck" hundreds of sticking calipers. Some were stuck pistons, some were stuck slides. Both are easy fixes. Even a NEW caliper should cost far less than that, bt the little elbow grease involved is well worth it. Best of luck to you.
Wife's old Honda had calipers that would either stick or rattle, until I took them apart and properly greased the slides. Easy-peasy.
Job was simple. Not worth a special post with pictures. The slides were stuck. The inside of one turned to hard sludge. Cleaned it out with a bore brush and some brake cleaner. New grease. New brake pads and back to the Stealership tomorrow for re-inspect.
I suspect the problem was from mixed grease. Some greases don't play well with others. It behooves one to ensure all old grease is removed before adding new so that this doesn't happen. This also goes for bearings.
Total cost of job: $35 for new pads.
I agree that even unsticking pistons is not that big of a deal. It is good if you can get rebuild kits so that if you tear a boot or gasket you can still put it all back together.
Stuck pistons normally come from water in the line leading to corrosion. Clean out the corrosion and add new fluid and you are back in business. My dad used to do this for a living and had several honing attachments just to polish brake cylinders. I don't have those, but I do have electric drills and some buffing wheels.
In case you are interested, the .223 chamber brush works well on this because the top of the slide hole has a larger mouth about the same size as an AR-15 chamber. To get a little deeper and do some added polishing, the brass 9mm bore brush on a power drill works nicely.
"The easiest way to "fix" this is to just take it to a different mechanic and re-inspect it hoping for a better outcome."
The problem with that approach is that the first inspector will have removed your sticker, so the second one will have an obvious clue that there is something wrong he needs to look for.
True. But the primary worry is that the first mechanic may have been right and there may be a problem that needs correcting. Since this is my daughter's car, I really do want brakes that work. So shopping around for a mechanic who is in a hurry is not good enough.
@Prof. Hale- This post is more my speed. I find brake jobs to be pretty easy, though I've yet to deal with frozen slides. It's good to know that a chamber brush will help fix the problem.
I should also note that I also tested the pistons on both sides to ensure they extend and retract without obstructions.
Note: when you do this, your brake fluid reservoir will likely overflow. Best to leave the cap off. A large syringe also can be helpful to remove extra fluid.
Giraffe, When you say "had to replace it" do you really mean "the mechanic told me I had to replace it"? I have also unstuck many calipers by disassembling, cleaning, polishing, and reassembling with a new boot and seal as appropriate. It is not a hard job if you have a little bit of patience and a few tools.
I "Had" to replace a caliper on my 4runner because at the time there were no rebuild kits being marketed.
Update. Re-inspection passed.
I had a similar experience after I graduated college and moved back to Southern California. The truck I had my father had bought used, and someone had done some interesting after-market mods. Nothing too out there, but I'm pretty sure that year F250 didn't come stock with headers and glass packs. I still miss the sound of that old inline six...
I needed to get the truck "smogged" to register it. I took it into one station and they came back with the same kind of story you have. Hundreds if not thousands worth of essential parts were said to be missing. I thanked them and took it to the station on the opposite corner of the intersection. The mechanic had just graduated with a math degree from CU, and perhaps he took pity on a fellow Colorado grad (albeit from a rival school). He said to tune it up and bring it back and he'd see if it passed.
I put in new spark plugs and spark plug wires, and I'm not sure now but maybe new points and rotor. It passed without a hitch. Somehow the truck didn't make the air too dirty without the mysterious missing parts (which may in fact have been missing).
Why is the sticker already scraped off?
That does not seem right. You still had a couple of days to go.
When you take a car in for inspection, step one is to scrape the old sticker off.
In NY, the mechanic will tell you that it is now illegal for you to remove your vehicle from his garage until you have paid whatever he asks. He will threaten you with violence or the police if you try.
In Virginia, If you fail to pass, they put a temporary "failure" sticker on that is good for another 14 days.
The failure sticker costs nothing and re inspection at the same garage costs nothing but the original $16 fee.
the mechanic told me I had to replace it"? I have also unstuck many calipers by disassembling, cleaning, polishing, and reassembling with a new boot and seal as appropriate.
The mechanic, who was a close family friend, who helped do the work for free, told me to replace it.
This was on a '79 plymouth volare and quite a few years ago. It may be that the caliper could have been fixed, but he didn't think so. He said that the calipers stick, then they get hot from the brake sticking, and then it is wrecked.
Perhaps it could have been fixed but that was more work than he wanted to do for me, but I don't think a new caliper broke the bank when the labor was free.
But it is a good thing to learn that you can fix them.
I had a mechanic tell me the same thing on my pickup, now that you mention it, and I think I replaced those too. That may have been a case where I could have saved money.
Normally, a bad caliper will cause other problems too. The most notable will be an overheated disc. That will warp and cause a shimmy when braking.
It is a good practice that you exercise the pistons on your calipers whenever you replace the pads just to make shure they aren't frozen.
my 4runner has 2 pistons per caliper instead of one. So one can be frozen and the brakes wtill function mostly normally. That makes it harder to detect a bad piston until too late. Again, new calipers don't break the bank, unless you get them from the Dealer.
"When you take a car in for inspection, step one is to scrape the old sticker off.
In NY, the mechanic will tell you that it is now illegal for you to remove your vehicle from his garage until you have paid whatever he asks. He will threaten you with violence or the police if you try."
I live in NYS and this has not been my experience but you are kind of close. I have always been allowed to drive the car off with the old inspection sticker if I failed inspection but you do lose the inspection fee. On the other hand, I did pay something like $15-16 for a new taillight bulb when I did agree to pay for something w/o knowing any better. One other time I did need front brakes but the shop wanted $300 or something similar. I told them to bring the car off the hoist as I will deal with it myself. I lost the fee but saved more on the back end by doing it myself. I will say the the inspections are run by a$$clowns though.
A new york garage told me that my backup sensor was failing and i needed a new one. Not allowed to leave with my car and a new part was on order. I whined and cried about being in the military and needing to get back to post by midnight. They discovered that it was only a "loose wire".
The same garage later threatened my dad with physical violence and called the police on him for trying to remove his car. They refused to give him his keys or back the car out of the garage.
YMMV
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