My wife has a 2009 Nissan Versa. Recently she told me that when braking on the highway her steering wheel shudders.
I said that sounds like the rotor.
She brought it over to Nissan service yesterday - told them about the shudder and eventually said it was the brakes - new rotors and pads.
It was expensive and would take time so she told them she would wait a few weeks until she brings the car back for recall work (they need to replace the front springs)
When I looked at the bill I saw that they had done a brake flush job and a coolant flush.
I wonder why would they do a brake flush if they are going to do the brakes in two weeks anyway?
Don’t brakes have to be bled when you replace rotors and pads?
She never had the brakes flushed before (car is '09)
If they did the brake flush when doing the brakes, wouldn’t that save on labor?
I wonder if they are trying to double bill her on the labor…
If you didn’t authorize it, they should not have done it.
However, they were both probably due since this is a 7 year old car and neither had been done before. Brake fluid should be changed every 40,000 miles or so since it absorbs water. The coolant change interval should be in your maintenance (or owner’s) manual. On my Accord, the coolant is replaced at about 100,000 miles or 7 years when the timing belt is replaced.
Since they did it now, they shouldn’t do it with the new pads/rotors. It doesn’t have to be done then, the brake system isn’t opened up when pads and rotors are replaced. So it just got done early.
But I would find a good independent shop to do pads/rotors, it’s very straight forward, and you’d probably save some money. Click on ‘Mechanics Files’ above to find one in your area (click on the ‘advanced’ tab).
They might have been due, but they should not have done them without prior authorization.
Did they say why she needs new springs? That ain’t normal.
Why the He\ did they do a coolant flush when the car was in for the brakes?
And no, normally the flush would wait for he brake job. They’re duplicating labor.
I’d find an independently owned and operated shop for this and future work and file a formal complaint with Nissan USA.
It would be practical to wait 2 weeks and perform the brake flush with the brake job but you would still have to pay for it. I doubt they would offer a discount for doing both on the same day.
It is usually up to the customer which services are performed. It sounds like your wife authorized the brake flush but not the brake replacement.
A brake flush is not similar to bleeding the brakes after a repair, Think you would have paid for it either way, sure it might be nice to do it all at once, but I think all is well.
Did the dealer say how much pad material was left on the pad? It should be printed on the invoice you paid. If the pads have several mm of thickness left (min is 1mm), take the car out on a relatively little used road and do a couple of hard 60-5 stops. Do not lock up the brakes but do go hard on them. The shudder should clear up. The heat from the hard stop cleans residues off the rotor that cause the shudder.
Both are done through the bleeder and while the vehicle is up on the lift with the wheels off.
I contend that doing them on different days duplicates labor… and “shop supplies” expenditures.
However, I also realize that the shop might not have necessarily charged less for doing them both together. And I wonder what compelled them to flush the cooling system.
I don’t like what I’m reading about the OP’s shop. I suspect the mechanic tried to jack his revenues up by doing unauthorized work. Flushing the cooling system without authorization, and admittedly biased by my own recent experience (which I’ll keep private), I’m not inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt and say the OP’s wife might have had him do these tasks. I see no reason why she would have authorized a cooling system flush for a brake problem.
It’s sort of odd they’d flush the brake system when they knew the pads and rotors were going to be replaced 2 weeks hence, but no harm done. Remind them about this when they install the new pads/rotors, perhaps they’ll offer a bit of a discount. I suspect what happened is the service manager didn’t tell the tech who worked on the routine maintenance job about the brake/rotor arrangement you’d already scheduled. It’s like when the city comes by and paves the road in front of your house, then the following week another crew comes by to replace a water main. About all you can do is admit a little sigh, then like Ray and Tom say on the show – 4GetAboutIt!