dealer broke bleed nipple during service (E63 W212)

[pmcgsmurf]

All this over what should have been a sub £50 job for a local engineering firm

It is unbelievable. Some dealers need to take a serious look at themselves.

 

[mrmonkeyboy]

I can't help but thinking (as bad as this is for the OP) we are entering 'mountain out of molehill' territory .

Couldn't agree more, I think i'd have received better service at Kwik Fit!
It shouldn't have got anywhere near this, they should have sorted it asap, does make me wonder how badly they've broken it or what are they hiding from me?

 

[pmcgsmurf]

It shouldn't have got anywhere near this, they should have sorted it asap, does make me wonder how badly they've broken it or what are they hiding from me?

You should not be wondering this!

As I said previous you should have demanded to see this or at the least a photograph/video (if they played the H&S card) of the damage/problem then you could have made up your own mind.

 

[Bellow]

A £50 job for a local machinist - yes. Once the caliper has been removed and a car is now in the workshop that is difficult to move out of there as it has no functioning service brakes. For sure, someone should be able to move it using parkbrake - maybe. Then someone else jumps in unaware and smashes it into a another customer's car.
Local machinist will have to strip caliper or (unacceptably) risk swarf contamination. They may well require new seals - back to the dealer where the car still is - more delay. And on it goes.

More productively would be a system that recognises frailty in some components that have to be disturbed during routine work. That, would be most effective at the design stage. SS nipples - sod the accountant and just do it.

 

[Will]

A £50 job for a local machinist - yes. Once the caliper has been removed and a car is now in the workshop that is difficult to move out of there as it has no functioning service brakes. For sure, someone should be able to move it using parkbrake - maybe. Then someone else jumps in unaware and smashes it into a another customer's car.
Local machinist will have to strip caliper or (unacceptably) risk swarf contamination. They may well require new seals - back to the dealer where the car still is - more delay. And on it goes.

More productively would be a system that recognises frailty in some components that have to be disturbed during routine work. That, would be most effective at the design stage. SS nipples - sod the accountant and just do it.

It’s really not that big a deal.

As I’ve said earlier in this thread you’ll find this sort of issue with many modern cars with alloy calipers/steel bleed screws (Porsche, Audi/BMW no doubt, many Brembo setups etc), and there’s plenty of people who can sort this out same day in a matter of minutes if required.

These sort of deadlocks gets nowhere fast. In the meantime the OP has a car sitting off road, depreciating by the day, costing probably the same in a month’s road tax as what a brake caliper specialist or even a mobile broken bolt/thread repair firm would charge to resolve


BTW, I’m not sure that they neglect to use SS for the bleed nipples due to cost, there will probably be other (technical) reasons too (material hardness/strength etc) but they are available on the aftermarket for very low cost if that’s what the OP chooses to fit for the future.

If I was the OP I think I’d have given the garage reasonable notice to rectify this damage, failing that collect the car and get it repaired elsewhere and either chalk it up to experience or charge them your additional costs.

The stalemate situation isn’t healthy for either party and ultimately the OP is losing out as he’s without his car :-(

 

[Bellow]

Indeed a stalemate and hard to know exactly what should have happened or will happen.
Best summary I can make is that I very rarely (if at all) join in on the ''how long will job XXX take?'' threads - for one very obvious reason.

 

[Alex]

How is that done without damaging the taper seat the nipple has to seal against?

Misread your question but as Phil said, they are meant as a repair item and just have a bigger thread without affecting the cone size.

 

[ioweddie]

Heli Coil

 

[AMGeed]

If I was the OP I think I’d have given the garage reasonable notice to rectify this damage, failing that collect the car and get it repaired elsewhere and either chalk it up to experience or charge them your additional costs.

The stalemate situation isn’t healthy for either party and ultimately the OP is losing out as he’s without his car :-(

This would be my take on the situation too. To leave a car like this depreciating whilst waiting is pointless. It will probably be losing up to £100 a month on unused tax and insurance too.
Get it fixed and driven, then sort out the differences with the dealer.

 

[Muckypaps]

To be honest I would just drive it to a place to get it removed, just because it is broke it is no worse than when you took it there.
No leak no problem.

 

[V8andTurbos]

Have u tried to escalate to the dealer principle? Who are u corresponding with at the dealership? Why don’t u arrange to have the calliper removed and take to a machine shop to be repaired, pay the £50 and don’t bother going back to that dealership? This kind of poor service is what put me off the MB brand and now I’ve moved over to Porsche

 

[steveskeggy]

Have there been many other instances of rear brake caliper bleed nipples snapping off during a service?

my local MB dealer has call to let me know it is £673 for a new rear caliper as the bleed nipple has broken off and apparently it is all part of the caliper unit, so it can't be extracted and replaced. Dealer is saying wear & tear so they're not going to cover the cost.

a) is this true about it being a single unit
b) does anyone have any experience of tackling the dealer?

i'm also going to complain to MB as I've a service car plan, so i'm really expecting someone else to pick up the bill here.

thanks

No, its cobblers!
EWA lists bleed nipples as bleed valves.
The part number is the same for all variants of the E63, including the 4matic and the special vehicles, and is the same as the front brakes in the too!
That part number is A0004214765
I used to work on FIAT`s in the late 70`s, and even on new cars the nipples would break, but they were skinny things that you undid with an 8mm spanner.
You just drill them out and re-tap them.

I think your main dealer is trying to milk your wallet for as much cash as they can, or maybe they just dont want to do the job.

If you dont get any joy from Mercedes (Quote that part number, and ask if it is a part of the caliper, then why is the screw listed seperately) bite the bullet and get an indie to do it.
It wont be cheap, as he will probably want to take the caliper to an engineering firm to get the job done properly, but it isnt going to be 600 quid!

 

[badgx]

I recently had same issue, unfortunately the nipple was corroded in, possible hasn't been bled for years. I ended up drilling a pilot hole using a standard HSS 4.5mm drill bit. Then I used a screw extraction bit which I purchased from Machine Mart, and using a spanner I managed to undo the remaining body. It was a relief, as at one point i thought the screw extraction bit was going to snapped. Either way, before splashing out on a replacement caliper, its worth trying the screw extraction tool.

 

[ChipChop]

It is quite astonishing that a Mercedes main dealer is willing to make themselves look so mechanically incompetent.

Surely there must be one person in the shiny expensive workshops who is actually a mechanic not a technician.

 

[Muckypaps]

When I was at Technical college in the old days, the Tutor said we would all become " Parts Fitters".
He knew this in 1980, sadly it's mostly true.

 

[st13phil]

When I was at Technical college in the old days, the Tutor said we would all become " Parts Fitters".
He knew this in 1980, sadly it's mostly true.

My father served his motor vehicle apprenticeship immediately after WWII, so due to the restriction on parts availability he had to learn machine shop and hand fitting skills so he could repair, or even make, parts from scratch. Clearly that's not viable (or necessary, most of the time) today, but some of the skills involved are still valuable.

By the mid 1970's, as well as his day job, he was teaching Motor Vehicle Technology to night-school students at the local college. Some of the students he was teaching had been working for quite a few years in main dealer workshops but had decided that they needed formally recognised generic (rather than manufacturer-specific) qualifications as it was becoming harder to move job without them. Despite their years of doing the job, none of them had a clue how to rebuild and set up a diff, how to verify valve timing on an engine, or how to use a bore mic to check for cylinder bore wear. In reality, the days of the "parts fitter" had already arrived.

 

[mrmonkeyboy]

Hi All,
Forgot to give everyone an update.

the dealership fixed the issue once lockdown started to ease, it helped that the Motors Ombudsman also gave me a reference that i passed on to them, so it didn't require the TMO to make a decision on this although i may still use the TMO route to see if i can claim any compensation for this.

 

[Will]

I actually checked back on this thread earlier as I couldn’t remember seeing an outcome.

Did MB just pay for a brand new caliper then?

 

[mrmonkeyboy]

I actually checked back on this thread earlier as I couldn’t remember seeing an outcome.

Did MB just pay for a brand new caliper then?

They told me they extracted the screw and put a new one in.
Either way, i didn't pay for it to be resolved


And thank you everyone for your input in to this, it was a truly shocking main dealer & mercedes experience.

 

[st13phil]

They told me they extracted the screw and put a new one in.

How odd is that?

When they thought you were going to pay for it, it needed a complete new caliper.

When they realised they were on the hook for it, they worked out that they could do what any competent fitter could do and repaired it for buttons.

Very strange...