I've been on the website many times but not posted anything. Does anyone have any experience of bleed nipples stripping threads whilst bleeding brakes? I took my car, 04 plate, for its 65000 service and whilst bleeding the brakes after brake fluid change the garage stripped the thread on the caliper. Consequently its cost me £148 more for the service. The question i'm asking is should i have foot the bill? Any opinions greatly received. Cheers

Bleed nipples are notoriously brittle things and very easy to shear off. Stripping the thread could be done if you overtightened it I suppose. Either way I'd expect the garage to make good the damage. Are they somehow claiming the thread was already stripped before they touched it? Has another garage serviced the car previously? Has it had a prior fluid change?

welcome to briskoda.

Davy

Stripping the thread is unusual- the nipple usually shears. It's usually only a problem if the fluid changes haven't been done (because the nipples seize through never being moved).

Welcome

Thanks for the reply. The car has only been serviced previously at a Skoda garage but they didn't change the brake fluid at 2 years when the should have done. The independent garage i took it to reckons it stripped as they loosened the nipple.

Did they show you any of the parts? The uncharitable might wonder if they sheered the nipple off, then c*cked up drilling the remains out, and were left with not enough thread for the new nipple to grip on, and stripped it putting the new one in. Whilst you _can_ strip a thread while undoing something - usually because the parts have locked together and the whole thread in the female part comes out with the male part, it's rather unlikely in this case since the caliper is so much stronger than the nipple.

I'm wondering if the Skoda dealer started to do the brake fluid change messed the caliper up and managed to get the nipple back in, then advised me that they would do the brake fluid next time(when the car was out of warrenty) or am i being a bit cinical! I do a lot of miles so the car is serviced every 6 months(20000miles) on variable mileage. I do have the part and yes the female part has been wrecked. Expensive lesson i think.