stone behind a brake backplate

[notaGolfR]

had an unpleasant experience at an official service depot today. When we got it back after a minor fix they said there was a grinding noise noticed and advised us to book it in another day for diagnosis.
We drove off about200 metres, and even with the windows up it was bleeding obvious. There's no way we wouldn't have noticed it when we dropped it off in the morning. It sounded like scraping in a front wheel arch so I stopped, knelt to check but couldn't see anything. No way were we (wife & I) driving home & coming back "another day".
Went straight back & suggested they put it on a hoist & inspect & perhaps spin wheels to locate the source.
"Sorry, no hoists free, just drive & come back another day"
I wrote a statement on the invoice stating that they assume all responsibility for consequences if we drove it & asked them to sign it. Hmm they said. I will not sign without the okfrom the manager. I drew attention to 2 hoists now vacant but they "are for another brand of car". Time was around 3pm by then.
He came back from the manager & said we have another hoist available in the section for VWs. Off it went & I followed and watched from the workshop entrance. 3 mechanics converged on it, one went straight to the driver-front wheel & poked about. They decided to hoist it & the noise changed to a loud squeel while they reversed & went fwd on the hoist.
I couldn't see exactly what they did but something dropped & was caught. Problem fixed. I asked what they found & was given a stone 1cm X 0.5cm. that they explained was stuck behind the brake plate. It must have got there after we left the car in the morning .... how unlucky.... how odd at the service workshops... how odd not to be willing to use a hoist.
This stone jam must surely happen sometimes. We will know the cause next time. How long would the stone have ground away?
What irks me is that the "drive & come back" notion, without knowing what was going on.
Were we unreasonable?

[Flipper Dog]

Same thing happened to me a few years back. Driving along and stopped at a set of lights, took off and this grinding sound appeared from the front wheel. The sound got louder and louder as we drove so stopped on the side of the road a few hundred metres up. Checked all around the wheels, suspension and under bonnet area to no avail. Took off again and no sound, WTF !!!!! But then started up again a few minutes later. Second stop and inspection produced the said stone caught between the backplate and brake disc. Couldn't reach it to remove so ended removing the wheel and out it popped. Talk about a brown pants day.
No way would I have attempted to leave the dealership in your situation. That is just slack service initially.

[gregozedobe]

Double slackness from the workshop - firstly for noticing the grinding noise and not fixing it straight away (I know what that noise is, and I'm not a professional mechanic), secondly for initially refusing to look at it once you asked.

I'd be going elsewhere for future work.

I had a small stone caught between a disk and the backing plate and it would intermittently grind, but once I took the wheel off it was easy to locate and remove.

[doc_777]

Some dealerships are simply awful for after-sales support (eg servicing, warranty work etc). Take your money elsewhere in future, and be sure to send the service manager an email telling them why - that it is their poor performance which has caused it,

[notaGolfR]

Thx for the support people. If, at the outset, they had simply said something like "it'll be ok. You've got a stone stuck behind the backplate. Happens all the time. It'll drop out with a bit of driving" then I would not have escalated my concern with the idea of a responsibility statement for them to sign and gone on my way, mentally noting that they could have hoisted it & fixed in a few minutes and the service was lousy.
Having said that, if the noise had worsened as it did for them when getting it on the hoist, then that would have been a real brown pants day.

[Transporter]

So, instead naming the workshop, you’ve made your post general and now people will assume that all the workshops are bad, unwilling to satisfy a customer who brought the car to them for service and from whom they took money from.

[notaGolfR]

So, instead naming the workshop, you’ve made your post general and now people will assume that all the workshops are bad, unwilling to satisfy a customer who brought the car to them for service and from whom they took money from.

ON THE CONTRARY!!!!! Sorry if I gave that impression. I purposely did not name the workshop as it would be wrong to assume they always give bad service. The action of one person in the organisation, in one isolated instance does not mean the business or that person always give bad service. In fact, the same individual was excellent beyond my expectations with regard to the fix I brought the car in for. It was only when the stone-behind-the-backplate issue popped up that things went pear-shaped.

[westenderbender]

This happened to me once in the Yarra Valley on my 2016 Trendline. Had RACV out to check on the car. They couldn’t work out what was going on, off they went.

Ended up driving home and it got louder and louder. Rang RACV again (or whatever the VW roadside service number is) and they sent an independent rather than the RACV people. He fixed it within seconds.

Guessing it’s common enough that some technicians can identify and fix it quickly, but not common enough that all technicians know what’s going on.

Being a VW dealer, they should know better.