Piston stuck in caliper after rear brakes replaced

BREEZY1028

MEMBER
2011 HYUNDAI SONATA
13,000 MILES

I recently had my rear brakes replaced. The whole works. The next day, my car started squeaking very loudly (wasn't doing that before) and also smelling burnt coming from the rear tires. I called the mechanic and he told me to drive it for at least 100 miles to "break them in". The problem seemed to only get worse, coming mostly from back left side. I brought it in about two weeks later and it was discovered that there was a piston stuck in the caliper on the back left side. I had just paid $400.00 for everything he did to the rear brakes (pads, etc.). Now he is quoting me another $350.00 plus the cost of a rental car for the day. I feel as though this problem was a direct result of his work on the brakes. The problems started the following day and further, he told me to keep driving on them. My question being that, since this issue occurred only after new brakes were put on, shouldn't they fix this piston problem for free? Or am I way off base here? Any advice here is welcomed and would be greatly appreciated!
Sincerely,
Single mother of three not willing to pay this guy $800.00 for rear brakes.

1 Reply

KASEKENNY

MECHANIC
18,907 POSTS

If all they did was replace the pads then I suspect he may have damaged the piston seal when compressing the caliper piston when putting the new brakes on.

When you replace the pads, you have to retract the piston in order to fit the new pads in the caliper. If the piston was far enough out, when he pressed it back in, it could have damaged this square cut seal which allows the piston to relax when you are not pressing the brakes. When this is damaged, the piston may not relax when you let go of the brakes which would keep the brakes applied on that caliper.

All this is clearly speculation as it is possible that this was a coincidence.

If this were me, I would charge you what I paid for the part and do the labor for free. Not because I would accept blame (unless I knew I did something) but just because of the way it looks.

Let me know if you have questions. Thanks