Dealer Incompetence
 

I get my 04 8 back from the dealer on Thursday after they performed the passenger side airbag inflator recall, the fuel pump recall, and the lower control arm recall. I spoke with the tech that did the work and asked him if the car gave him any trouble and asked him how the car drove after the new control arms. He said it gave him no trouble and that it drove great. I asked him if he did an alignment and he stated that the car was aligned. I leave the dealer and go get some gas and I notice that the car is pulling to the left. I hit the highway and the car is really pulling to the left. This car is driving like crap and it's never driven poorly. This car has always been tight and would drive straight. I call the dealer when I get home and they are closed.

What the dealer doesn't know is that I work as a tech for Toyota and that I am very well versed in diagnosing and repairing cars. I take the car into work yesterday and put the car on the alignment rack. The front alignment was WAAAAAAAAAAAY off:

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I also noticed that none of the cotter pins were replaced in the upper ball joints or tie rod ends after the performed the lower control arm recall:

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I get ahold of the dealer and they said that the tech that performed the alignment had to heat the jam nuts on the outer tie rods to loosen them and that the inner tie rod must have still been hot when he did the alignment. Maybe he should be trained again on how to do an alignment. Even the new guys know you don't do the alignment right after heating and loosening jam nuts and or nuts or cam bolts. Of course the vehicle won't be aligned properly. The camber and caster were nowhere near what they should be and they weren't heated. If the tech did his job properly and drove the car to verify the alignment he would have observed the pulling. This is the second time this dealer has shown a high level of incompetence when performing warranty work. I'm glad I do my own work. I make sure its right the first time.

Sounds like you need to find another dealer.

I've only taken it there for recalls. I'll give Mazda a call on Monday. In less than an hour I fixed the alignment and it drives perfect. But I agree, its time to take the car elsewhere for recalls.

I'm the same way, just the air bag done so far.
I'm waiting for them to let me know for the others.

I don’t even bother with the cotter pins myself. If it’s tighten to spec the nut will never unloosen. Ask any tech if they ever saw one of those nuts either loose or backed off to the cotter pin and I bet there isn’t even one.

Fairly similar story for me: took my S2 to the local dealership for an airbag recall, discovered incompetence, now going elsewhere. The dealership I now go to is ~45 mins away and not perfect, but SO much better. 100% worth the 4-5x longer drive.