Bel Air, Maryland Dealer almost killed me!
 

I took my 8 in to the dealer monday to get the front brakes replaced under the TSB for sqealing brakes. Picked it up that evening, as I started to back the car out of the space the dealership parked it in I applied the brakes and noticed there was a knocking sound from the front right brake. I immediatly parked the car and went back inside to find that all the service guys had left for the day. After walking around the dealership for about 15 minutes someone finally decided to ask me if I needed help. I explained the situation. The salesman contacted one of the services guys and they told him to tell me it was probably moisture in the brakes and I should just drive it to make it stop and bring it back if I had problems. I drove it home that night and it did not stop. I parked the car in neutral and put on the emergency brake at home. I looked at the front right brake caliper and found that I could grab it and slide it up and down about an inch. The next day I immediatly contacted mazda and told them what was happening, they didnt seem concerned and schedualed me for maintainence for the following day. Wel later on in the day on the drive home after going over a few bump I heard the caliper rattle and then something hit the ground and bounced up under the car. I tried to slow down but when I tried to hit the brakes a horribly loud noise came from the brakes and the car rumbled so I downshifted and drifted until I pulled over and could use my emergency brake to stop. I parked the car in neutral and went around to look at the brake. Now I could actually pull the whole bottom part of the caliper up off the rotor leaving only the top peice connected to the rotor. Holy shit, imagine if I had been on the freeway and had to make a sudden stop. Well luckily it was on a 30 mph road close to home. So now I had to drive home ever so slowly shifting to slow down and brake with the emergency brake. Believe me it will not be a happy morning at the MILE ONE HERITAGE MAZDA in BEL AIR, MARYLAND. Do I seem out of line to think I should be compensated for all this? Has anyone else had a problem with this dealer?

I hate to be a prick, but if you could move the caliper, why in the world were you driving it?

dude, they forgot to BOLT DOWN the caliper after swapping brake pads

give them hell tomorrow morning, though i don't know what you can ask for in compensation, since there's no damage to anything/anyone, fortunately :o

maybe some free accessories??? dunno, you can figure this one out yourself :p

Well I was driving on it because I absolutly needed to, they didnt seem to concerned as to get the car towed and get me in a vehicle for the day when I told them this. I didn't notice the caliper was moving until I got it home, the car was going to the dealership immediatly the next morning but my girlfriend had suffered a slight concusion at work and I had to pick her up (she couldnt see well enough to drive), the bumps on the way were enough to jar loose the bolt.

Sorry to hear it guy, but you yourself already conducted a safety inspection and found something amiss. Why would you let someone over the phone tell you it's ok to drive the car? Airline pilots get final say over the mechanics whether a plane goes airborne. The car driver has final responsibility whether to get behind the wheel. Maybe they'll feel guilty and throw you a freebie but I'd be more interested to stand over the shoulder of the mechanic and make sure that it gets fixed correctly (by a different mechanic than worked on it the first time)

personally I didnt expect the bolt on the caliper to actually come off endangering my life. If I would have known that was going to happen I dont think I would ahve been driving, I would have rather payed for a taxi. I think this is a good oppertunity to raise hell and get them to flash my car and go down a list of other warrantable things with them to get done.

i.e. my rims r sratched but under road hazard, maybe it happened when the caliper bolt came off and i lost control into a curb :rolleyes:

If the clipper could be moved by your hand...SOMETHING IS WRONG, but give them hell anyway. What type of crappy work are they charging people for?

Time for some free stuff!

So I called them this morning to send a roll-back and to get me in a rental. I layed into the service manager, so im assuming the guy who told me to drive my car is going to get reemed this morning by him. I suggested while they were at it that they also replace the two right rims that are scratched from "road hazard" and to also run any and all pcm flash updates. we'lll see what happens this evening when I call back up.

dude call a lawyer now and don't sign shit..

^^^ I agree, someone could literally have been killed because of this dealer's negligence. Making the dealer feel as much pain as possible is the best way to ensure that this doesn't happen again. If you let them simply sweep this under the rug, then they will probably just forget about it and the same thing will happen again to someone else.

why are you making apoint of saying you parked in neutral and why are you doing that?

if u park it with the breaks applied and put it in park then the calipers grip the rotors, if its in neutral they arent gripping them (easier to check if they r loose)

:confused:

huh???

the brakes don't care if you are in park or neutral :confused:

thats what i thought you thought. its not correct. next time you want to stick yolur head under thetire or any other part of your car place the car in park (at) or a gear if mt. otherwise you are going to end up with a car rolloing over you.

well here is what happened. I brang the car to a stop using the brakes then hit it in park and then the emergency brake. I went over to grab the caliper, it didnt budge, it was still gripping the rotor. I started the car up put it in drive, took off the emergency brake and let off the brake, it went no where (usually autos start rolling), so i hit the gas lightly and a horrible noise was made when the caliper broke free of the rotor. I then used the emergency brake to hault the car (yea i guess it doesnt matter if its in neutral). This time the caliper wasnt stuck gripping the rotor and I could fully bring it up off the rotor :(

When I brang the car in this morning on a roll-back, I was pretty calm because my step dad who works for a ford dealer body shop had already took it upon himself to lay into them that morning. I spoke with the service guy and showed him how the car was fucked up, I then mentioned that while he was fixing this it would be nice to replace my two rims that had been fucked by a curb and to also do any pcm updates available. He was very cooperative and appoligetic. He mentioned that he was just glad I was taking it well and not screaming like some of his customers. He also told me they had a meeting that morning in which the mechanic got chewed out.

In response to the guy who has had service at this dealer.
I have taken the car up there before to get headlights replaced (film on the inside of them), they were very good with everything and helpful, so i guess it was just this one bad experience I had, I wasnt sure if this was a common thing there.

Nice to hear that they were helpful. So you got replacement rims out of it... sweet!

The front brakes are not part of the ebrake at all. If the front caliper was not moving after a drive it was because of heat expansion.