Hello Subaroonies,

I recently paid a visit to the local Subaru dealership to take advantage of their $19.95 oil change special and...wouldn't you know it...it wound up costing me over $200.

 

One of the brake calipers was missing a bolt and since I couldn't just drive it off the lot (my dog growled like...real loud) I kinda had to let them 'do it'.

 

Anyway...they replaced the caliper with a new one, bled the brake line and now there is substantial extra play in the pedal. I was wondering if this was normal after replacing just one caliper?

 

--Damien

If the brake system isn't bled correctly...then yes That will make for a pedal with extended travel, but will usually pump up nicely if you keep hitting the brake pedal.

If it does pump up nicely, bring it back and tell them there is air in the system

Thanks for the reply....

 

 

What do you mean my 'pump up'?

 

 

--Damien

If its spongy, and you can pump it a bunch and it gets nice and solid that means you're compressing the air in the system.

Did the dealer tell you why the caliper needed replacing? If brakes worked okay, then I can't image anything wrong with the caliper. Would replacing the missing bolt have fixed the problem? It would have required removing the road wheel to find a missing caliper bolt. Something just doesn't seem right about their doing this "service". I guess I am suspicious of going in for an oil change, then mechanics start doing unsolicited inspection work to find problems that they are so conveniently available to fix, unless of course, you requested this additional diagnostic dealer service.

 

+1 on what others have said that the brake caliper has not been bled properly, so air is still in the brake line. A re-bleed on the brake line should fix this.

I'm also wondering why they felt the need to replace the whole caliper over one bolt. A lot of dealers will do a multi point inspection free of charge with an oil change or regular service (so they can get more money by finding things that are "wrong" with the car) but a caliper bolt is like $3 and takes all of 2 minutes to install, including removing the wheel, which doesn't even have to be done to get access to the caliper bolts if the car is on a lift.

Well...a bolt was missing and I think rust was keeping the caliper in place.

 

I don't think they were lying about that...I suppose they could have just put in a bolt but they told me they couldn't 'do that' for a lame reason I couldn't really argue with at the time.

 

I couldn't really drive it off the lot cuz it was the lower bolt so the friction would have whipped the whole caliper around.

 

 

Anyway I brought it in this morning but I didn't really pay attention to what the mechanic was actually doing...for all I know they were probably confident enough they did a good enough job the first time around.

 

 

This is the St. Johnsbury Subaru dealership in Vermont for those from the New England area.

 

 

I would give these guys about a 5/10 for honesty.

 

I guess the usual caveat about 'stealerships' would apply yet again esp. if you have an older Subaru.

 

Cheers!

Damien