Spent loads at garage but car is now worse...

tigersue

I took my elderly Mazda Demio to the garage just over two weeks because of a scraping/grinding noise from the front wheel. They diagnosed it as uneven brake wear and fitted new pads and discs. When I went to collect it there was no brake pressure so they took another look and told me that a seal had probably gone in the master cylinder - so I had the master cylinder replaced.
However, since then they still cannot get any pressure in the braking system and the car is un-driveable. They are at a loss as to what to do now as they can't fix it.
I am therefore in the position where I took my car (with no apparent braking problem) into the garage worth about £600- £800 and despite having spent £660 on it I now have a car which is only good for scrap value.
Am I entitled to get a refund for the work that they have done? I will obviously not get any benefit from the parts or the labour and I can't afford to pay any more.
Any advice would be welcome,
thanks very much
TigerSue

colino

Remove the car from dumb and dumber and get the car into any, local, recommended repairer. They maybe misdiagnosed the fault (uneven brake wear is a symptom, not a fault) and got in over their heads, but the sooner a cowboy like this is named and shamed, the better.
Your car isn't particularly exotic or rare and fitting pads (badly) and potentially turning the seals on the master cylinder is rare, but not impossible, in the hands of an amateur.
Debateable what to pay them, if anything, as they have clearly made matters worse. If there are new pads and discs on the car, they should be grateful if you pay them for those parts, but that would be the end of my generosity.

AdrianC

No apparent brake problem apart from the symptoms you took it in because of, of course.

If there was a scraping/grinding, the pads were down to bare metal - so the discs were also scrap.
If they'd worn unevenly, rather than just totally worn out, then just replacing pads and discs is not enough. The cause of that unevenness needs investigating. It may be sticking caliper slides, which can be easily cured with a clean and lubricate. Or it may be a hydraulic problem, usually caused by inadequate previous maintenance - failure to regularly change the brake fluid. Or it may be a flexible hose breaking down internally.

As a result of investigating those, it's quite likely that the fluid would be changed - and the process of bleeding that can easily cause a borderline-dead master cylinder to turn it's toes up.

Why can't they bleed it now? <shrug> It may be any one of a number of things.

But one thing's for sure - you took an unroadworthy car in...

Strider590

Assuming it has ABS, some of these systems can be a bit tricky to bleed, especially if you let any air into them. I suspect they didn't know what they were doing OR a moments lapse of concentration has seen them getting air into the ABS unit.
It's shocking that cowboys like this can even make a living......

I bet they "seem nice" though.

Marktheshark

Did the brakes have pressure before the chuckle brothers messed about with them ?

tigersue

Thanks for the replies. The reason for the uneven brake wear was a broken caliper slider which was replaced at the same time as the discs and pads. I've already paid for this and for the master cylinder. The garage have generally been good in the past and have a decent reputation, although they certainly seem to have gone beyond their abilities now.
My main question now is less about getting it fixed or what the source of the problem but whether I can cut my losses and get any money back. The car may have had a fault when I brought it in - otherwise I wouldn't have taken it in the first place - but it did have brakes and now six hundred quid later it doesn't and I can't drive it anywhere else for a second opinion- which will inevitably cost more.
Thanks again.
TigerSue

Marktheshark

Does it have ABS as if its old it may be a mechanical valve system and they sometimes need a special kit to bleed them or the air just moves around the valves.
No amount of random opening things can get the air out, it is done with software, a computer and a sequence to follow of bleed points as the software opens and closes certain valves .
I would look for a brake specialist, it might just be a case of they do not have the equipment to purge the ABS system of air.

jazzy

The master cylinder probably needs "bench bleeding" which is often not carried out by some garages, and results in the symptoms that you are experiencing.

nobbysn*ts

Or they simply forced the pistons back in, and knackered the master cylinder or the ABS unit.

colino

They are not complex beasts, even if they have flipped the master cylinder seal over, that should be out of the equation if they have replaced the master cylinder. Even the worst, most poorly trained tech could bleed a simple system like this. Either by a two man job, vacuum or pressure bleed, without going near a forced, remote power bleed that other complex cars sometimes need. Even allowing gravity to do the job overnight would fix this IF the master cylinder and associated pipework had been replaced competently.