Hello,
I'm looking for some advice.
My rear brakes started making a scraping noise last week, so I booked the car (1995 N reg Citroen AX 1 litre) into a local independent garage to have the shoes replaced.
They did this on Thursday.
On Friday I used the car to travel to work and back (20 miles) and all seemed to be ok.
On Saturday I drove from my home in Merseyside to Leeds and the brake warning light flickered on once briefly during the journey. (Total distance about 95 miles).
This morning at 9am I began to travel home and after driving down 2 streets from the house I was staying at I found I had no brakes. The brake pedal gave no resistance and travelled straight to the floor.
I pulled over and checked the brake fluid reservoir and found it was empty.
I called the RAC and the man who came to look at the car found brake fluid all over both rear wheels and diagnosed leaking cylinders.
He towed me to a garage which replaced the cylinders and now the car seems to be driving and braking well again.
My question is:
What action should I take against the original garage?
My concern is that I only asked them to change the brake shoes and they did actually do this, so they might not be at fault.
However, by not inspecting the cylinders for damage and recommending their replacement they left me in a potentially very dangerous position.
The RAC man also suggested that they may have actually damaged the cylinders when replacing the shoes.
Is inspection of the cylinders a normal part of replacing brake shoes? I would assume it is, because it is an ideal opportunity to inspect them while the drums are off.
Other factors which are off topic and not directly related to the garage's failure to spot the problem, but which have caused me a lot of worry are as follows...
I was driving my girlfriend's parents to Leeds, both of whom are about 70 years old. My girlfriend's mother is recovering from a broken leg and is walking on crutches. If I had lost braking power on the journey to Leeds we may have been stranded for a long time in very cold weather at best and could have had a crash.
On the journey back with both my girlfriend's parents and my girlfriend I was supposed to be driving her to Liverpool Airport to catch a flight. Luckily our friends in Leeds drove her there while I waited around for the car to be fixed, but this was a considerable inconvenience to our friends in Leeds.
She did catch her flight. Her parents got home safely. I didn't crash and nobody was hurt, but any one of those things could have happened and considerable inconvenience was caused.
What would you do in my position?
David.