"WesBarton89 - The Way to Santa Fe" (wesbarton89)
03/19/2015 at 15:01 • Filed to: None
3
0|
"WesBarton89 - The Way to Santa Fe" (wesbarton89)
03/19/2015 at 15:01 • Filed to: None | 3
| 0 |
So, as I posted earlier, there was an issue with the brake pedal going down way too far to the floor after a complete brake job (to the tune of $300) had been done to the car by the shop, to allow it to pass inspection. As I said before, it went down far to begin with, but afterwards got worse.
Apparently, the master cylinder WAS bad, and they missed it when they passed the car. Now, in Maryland, inspection is STRICT and this was a major oversight. They should not have passed it. Now, we thought it was fine initially, because the fluid was clear as it should have been, but after a little driving, and bleeding the brakes, the fluid came out black. Yup, it's bad, and there's no way it should have passed with that.
Initially they were going to charge $100 for the part, and comp the labor fees to fix it, but after we raised a stink, they're going to replace the entire thing for free... tomorrow. So we have to drive it 10 miles to the inspection station tonight, drop it off with the key, and wait for it to be fixed.
After that's been done, there will be words with the owner, explaining how the inspector that passed it, initially missed the bad master cylinder and passed the car. If we were to get into a wreck, and there's injuries or casualties, due to a lack of ability to brake in enough time, the inspection station would face some serious litigation charges, for passing a non-roadworthy car.
Now, I admit, some of this could be on me/us, as we shouldn't have picked it up from the shop and driven it home with the pedals going so far down, but it is the due diligence of the inspection station to make sure the car is absolutely safe and roadworthy. They get paid a lot of money to make sure that the car is safe, and performs as it should. Brakes are one of the most important safety features, and can be the only thing saving you from a collision. You lose that feature, you may as well not even drive the car.
My blue Durango has bad brakes on it, but the whole thing is needing too many repairs, so we aren't fixing it, instead we're parting it to our red Durango that we bought. I was forced to drive the blue one out of necessity the other day, and a van pulls right out in front of us. The brakes are so worn down, I almost didn't stop in time, but they kept us from a nasty wreck, but performed even worse after that, and that was with much less pedal travel. I wouldn't have been able to avoid that wreck in the Infiniti right now, and being a much smaller car, rear-ending that idiot van would have been disastrous.
So yeah, we get in a wreck, and get hurt or worse, that shop is getting sued for every penny they're worth. We're driving the Infiniti as absolutely as little as possible right now, taking public transit or walking when we can, or getting rides from relatives.
But yes, that's a huge oversight on the part of the shop, and thankfully they'll be fixing it for free, but I seriously hope that inspector gets fired, because you just don't let something like that slip through the cracks. I love driving that car, but I have no problem not driving it if there's a lack of safety.
Those of you that don't have time/the space/patience to do your own wrenching and have to take it to a shop, or if you need to get it state inspected, and they do the work for you, PLEASE MAKE SURE THAT THE JOB WAS DONE RIGHT AND EVERYTHING IS UP TO SPEC. There's a lot of unsafe cars on the road right now, let's do our part and keep it from getting any worse. I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but I've heard so many stories about unsafe cars being on the road.
/rant over
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