Is this normal for a Subaru

MNS

MNS

Active member
Disclosure: I know nothing about cars.

My mom has a pretty new subaru. Not sure of the model but its a crossover style on. Maybe a 2012 model?

Anyways, she has 27, 000 km on it. When she took it in to get it serviced she got quite the surprise. A $700 bill for break pads all fucked and the rotors completely screwed as well. She is a 55 year old lady who drives to get groceries or go to work at the hospital. We don't salt our driveway. We live in BC.

27,000 km seems early for something like this to happen. The Subaru dealership said they perform certain checks at certain periodic services. Subaru (the company) tells the dealership when checkups are to be performed. Apparently the break checkups have been lacking lately because they only say they need to be check every "x" amount of kms. Anyways, seems pretty lame for a car company.

Spark notes - Moms new Subaru had fucked break pads/rotors after 27,000 km of easy driving. $700 bill not covered by Subaru. Anyone else had this?
 
As terrible as it sounds they probably just took advantage of your mom because typically women don't know a whole lot about their vehicles, especially things like brake pads. The pads were probably fine but they replaced them to make more money, or maybe they didn't even replace them.

This happens very frequently at repair shops.
 
Yea. Fucking Kal tire told me I have 400km til my breaks are fucked. 3000km later...

 
ouch. taking it to the stealership will bone you.

that seems like a legit price for 4 new rotors + pads....next time ask to see the pads and rotors to see if that work really had to be done
 
Brake pads should last longer than that. Rotors should last way longer.

How quickly does your mom stop for lights and signs? Is your mom super fat?
 
Kal Tire is always trying to get me to replace shit, I just ignore them.

On the subject though - Your mom got ripped off. I just did my front brake pads, callipers, and roters on my Legacy over the summer. Pretty sure it was the first time they were replaced after 250 000km. Brake pads were pretty much down to metal and shit got bad (funny enough though - Kal Tire never mentioned anything about them. ha!). I think though, it was the calliper that seized up causing the problem.

Some people just don't have a clue about cars and refuse to learn, mechanics can smell their ignorance I think. I keep telling my mom to stop going to the damn quickie lube places to get her oil changed and offered to show her X amount of times how to do it herself but she just flat out refuses and pays way too much money for that shit.
 
I bet she drives with two feet? Riding the BRAKE I bet? My mom used to do that back in the day. You cannot really tell you're doing it either. Over time it rapes your pads and rotors.
 
The rotors could have been deeply grooved or rusted due to lack of driving... which would not effect the braking power that much, just creates noise.

What you need to do is find the inspection sheet and find the brake pad lining numbers and tell me how many pad life was left and then we can forward from there. I can help your mom get some money back by some coaching on what to say if they ripped her off.

600 bucks isnt really that out of line for OEM parts replacement and pricing, maybe a tad high but it is what I would expect to pay.

Get back to me via PM and we can help your mom try to get some money back if they gouged her. I have worked in the car industry in dealerships for 7 years, I know some magic words that will get some real sway in an situation like this.
 
That's pretty bad 27000 kms, and should most definitely have been covered by warranty, I am almost certain the warranty would still be in effect if the vehicle is only 2 years old and 27000kms.

I had to get my front rotors replaced on my truck after 50000kms and GM was almost embarrassed about it and replaced them on warranty. Got about 120 000kms out of the next set and about 150 000kms on the first set of rear rotors.
 
My brakes have always sucked on my Impreza. Even after the rotors and pads were replaced they started to suck very quickly. I drove my sisters Infinity and the brakes were insanely good.
 
you literally are talking out of your ass at this point. I dont want to sound rude but he didnt do the repairs himself and he went to subaru... so aftermarket was not an option. typically installing a set of brakes on a car is 1.5 hours labour an axle as well.

Lets review the facts here... we have no clue why they replaced her pads and rotors so everything is speculation at this point... there could be some missing information here.
 
depends on the wear on the rotors. They are very hard to cover under warranty repairs because brakes are obviously a "wear and tear" item so what caused a failure is a main factory on the green light for replacement under warranty.

Most warranty repairs related to brakes have a 1 year limit unless it is related to caliper failure or park brake related concerns.

On occasion a company will find a run of rotors or pads that are causing issues on a large amount of cars ( they do keep track of all warranty claims and they store the information so they can issue service bulletins or recalls based on rate of failure).
 
Yeah, that makes sense, I would have thought that pads and rotors would have a minimum kms that they should be covered under warranty for and that it would be greater than 27 000 kms. Looking back, my rotors have warped not worn out.
 
I'm a full time university student that has a job and volunteers on the side and is preparing to write the MCAT.

More importantly my mom just went and got it fixed without telling me. So I never had a chance.
 
No problem.

Whenever a car has work performed on it from a dealership they all follow a form of conduct for their repair orders that is pretty much universal since they are technically legal documents.

They must list 3 things... Concern, Cause, and Correction. If the copy of the RO that was giving to you does not clearly list any of these things in the tech's story you have large amounts of leverage against the dealership. For instance of this particular case with the OP's mom's subaru... if it does clearly state why the brakes were worn out so quickly and what was done to prevent it from happening again, you have large amounts of leverage you can use against the dealership that performed the work.

The first thing you need to do is complain in person with the service manager of the dept since it is much harder for him to decline or not cooperate in person, it is much easier to be cold to a customer over the phone because he cannot see their emotions or that a human being is on the other end of the phone conversation. When you make a complaint you have to know exactly what to complain about otherwise it just looks like sour grapes, you must figure out exactly what was not layed out correctly for the work on your car and pin point the complaint in order to gain any sort of ground when you are posturing. Do not be rude when you are with the manager as they are far less likely to help someone out who is being unreasonable and emotional. If all else fails, you need to ask for the customer care phone number of the car brand as the car dealership answers to customer care and it gets quite messy if customer care gets directly involved, managers will do everything in their power to keep customer care out of the situation as they keep a record of how many times they have been contacted in relation to a service dept or a particular person in general. If a case is severe enough, a brand rep will travel to the dealer and deal with the customer directly and that is a massive negative reflection on the service manager. When you ask for the customer care number you should ask for another hard copy of the RO to let them know you are not fucking around and are planning to lodge a formal complaint and scan the archived RO to the brand, normally something like this is enough on its own to strong arm the manager into getting what you are looking for.

Just remember to never lose your cool, that will get you no where.... it pays to be calm and collected when dealing with the service manager as it shows that you are willing to handle the situation in a civil manner.

Good luck to all who need to flex their muscles at the service depts, most service depts DO NOT want to fuck over customers and if the RO in question is reviewed and the tech is found to be at fault it will come directly out of his pocket through docked pay and you will get free service related things in the future along the way. Tech's will literally have money taken back from them in a situation where they fuck over a customer and are caught in the act, hence the need for perfect paper work on the tech's end ( the 3 C's I listed earlier).
 
you must be a real hotshot on the tools. Good for you. I guess when I get to the level of calling an impact gun and "air gun" maybe I could achieve the things you have in the automotive service industry.
 
I wish I could upvote this post like a million times.

I'm lucky enough to have a good mechanic who is a family friend and a very respectable and knowledgeable guy.

However, the few experiences I have had with dealerships have taught me that this post is worth way WAY more than most kids on here have any clue about.

You sir are a true gentleman and one seriously classy individual.

Also, somebody bump tronned's car help thread. That thread is also a huge help to anyone with a troubled automobile.
 
honestly all it takes is your mom going down one huge mountain hill with her foot hard on the brake and boom, there go your rotors. Theyll get hot as shit, warp to fuck and youll have two options. Could grind em down back to flat or get new ones.

I let a friend drive my car to mount washington one time because i was hungover as balls. He clearly wasnt using low gear through the mountains and the next time i drove i was like yup, fuck my rotors are warped

someone who drives poorly like that is also likely to be the same person who accelerates into red lights and rails the brakes at the last minute. there go your pads

honestly, your mom is probably a typical female driver and does not know how to use the flow of the road, coast to stop signs and lights, and use low gear on huge hills
 
12929907:tronned said:
No problem.

Whenever a car has work performed on it from a dealership they all follow a form of conduct for their repair orders that is pretty much universal since they are technically legal documents.

They must list 3 things... Concern, Cause, and Correction. If the copy of the RO that was giving to you does not clearly list any of these things in the tech's story you have large amounts of leverage against the dealership. For instance of this particular case with the OP's mom's subaru... if it does clearly state why the brakes were worn out so quickly and what was done to prevent it from happening again, you have large amounts of leverage you can use against the dealership that performed the work.

The first thing you need to do is complain in person with the service manager of the dept since it is much harder for him to decline or not cooperate in person, it is much easier to be cold to a customer over the phone because he cannot see their emotions or that a human being is on the other end of the phone conversation. When you make a complaint you have to know exactly what to complain about otherwise it just looks like sour grapes, you must figure out exactly what was not layed out correctly for the work on your car and pin point the complaint in order to gain any sort of ground when you are posturing. Do not be rude when you are with the manager as they are far less likely to help someone out who is being unreasonable and emotional. If all else fails, you need to ask for the customer care phone number of the car brand as the car dealership answers to customer care and it gets quite messy if customer care gets directly involved, managers will do everything in their power to keep customer care out of the situation as they keep a record of how many times they have been contacted in relation to a service dept or a particular person in general. If a case is severe enough, a brand rep will travel to the dealer and deal with the customer directly and that is a massive negative reflection on the service manager. When you ask for the customer care number you should ask for another hard copy of the RO to let them know you are not fucking around and are planning to lodge a formal complaint and scan the archived RO to the brand, normally something like this is enough on its own to strong arm the manager into getting what you are looking for.

Just remember to never lose your cool, that will get you no where.... it pays to be calm and collected when dealing with the service manager as it shows that you are willing to handle the situation in a civil manner.

Good luck to all who need to flex their muscles at the service depts, most service depts DO NOT want to fuck over customers and if the RO in question is reviewed and the tech is found to be at fault it will come directly out of his pocket through docked pay and you will get free service related things in the future along the way. Tech's will literally have money taken back from them in a situation where they fuck over a customer and are caught in the act, hence the need for perfect paper work on the tech's end ( the 3 C's I listed earlier).
Click to expand...

You are the best!
 
12945154:KingTaco said:
honestly all it takes is your mom going down one huge mountain hill with her foot hard on the brake and boom, there go your rotors. Theyll get hot as shit, warp to fuck and youll have two options. Could grind em down back to flat or get new ones.

I let a friend drive my car to mount washington one time because i was hungover as balls. He clearly wasnt using low gear through the mountains and the next time i drove i was like yup, fuck my rotors are warped

someone who drives poorly like that is also likely to be the same person who accelerates into red lights and rails the brakes at the last minute. there go your pads

honestly, your mom is probably a typical female driver and does not know how to use the flow of the road, coast to stop signs and lights, and use low gear on huge hills
Click to expand...

LOL i remember this.

anyways, this man is correct. it just takes a few instances or one bad / overcautios driver to fuck brakes up. its just a fact.
 
12928059:JAHpow said:
As terrible as it sounds they probably just took advantage of your mom because typically women don't know a whole lot about their vehicles, especially things like brake pads. The pads were probably fine but they replaced them to make more money, or maybe they didn't even replace them.

This happens very frequently at repair shops.
Click to expand...

This.
 
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