Customer told me my brake job was noisy. Learned I was skipping the break-in procedure.

2 comments

2 Comments

That's an interesting take, but I gotta respectfully disagree a bit here. The noise complaint might be on the customer for not knowing about the break-in, but the real issue is the mechanic skipping that step in the first place. You say you learned you were skipping it, so that tells me you probably knew better and just got lazy or rushed. The break-in procedure is there for a reason - it's not some optional step you can skip if things are busy. If you're charging for a brake job, you should be doing the full job, including that final step. Customers don't know all the little details, that's why they pay us to do it right.

felix48819d ago

oh man, I totally get where you're coming from. I had a buddy who worked at a shop for a few years and he used to skip the break-in all the time. He figured if the pads and rotors were matched right and the car wasn't driven hard, it was fine. Well, one day a customer comes back after a week saying the brakes are squealing like crazy. My buddy just told them to drive it more aggressively to seat them. Customer tried that, still squealed. Ended up having to redo the whole job for free and lost a customer. He never skipped it again after that. So yeah, it's one of those things you learn the hard way, but customers shouldn't have to suffer for it.