Boxster S Rotors badly gouged after "Specialist" rear wheel bearing replacement
 

Has anyone seen this before?

The Boxster in question has new rear wheel bearings fitted and was out of my sight for a couple of months whilst having it's engine rebuilt and chips and scratches resprayed.

I now have it back, but with a grinding from the rear rotors (Not surprising when you see the photo.) and it looks as though someone has found a way of mounting the Brembo calipers about 1-1.5mm too far inboard, or the rotors were put on protruding 1-1.5mm further out than they should, which would be even more worrying. When I last saw the car, the rotors were fine and both sides are scored exactly the same, so whatever was done incorrectly, was done on both sides.

The rear bearing work was sub-contracted to a "Porsche Specialist" by the engine rebuilders as they, quite rightly, like to stick to their own area of expertise.

I'm about to order new rotors, pads and also steel lines whilst I'm at it and will take this opportunity to repaint the calipers whilst they are off the car but any advice would be greatly appreciated.

If I were you I would take it back to the repair shop (sub contracted or not) and let them foot the bill and make it right. I don't even know how that's possible to screw up like that.

Looks like your brake pad is worn down too far.

it would like it wore down too far, however, you can see there is plenty of pad left as well as the fact that even if it wore down that far the piece that is rubbing would not hit anyway.

Whatever new bearings they put in obviously aren't the right size. Ask them for new calipers while you're at it. How can they return cars to customers like that??? :barf:

You should tell them to replace the rotor, the pads and the caliper. All parts have been damaged by their mistake. The pad and rotor are both scored and the caliper guard or stud (whatever they might call it) has essentially been sanded down to an out of spec condition. Go for broke, both sides need to be done.

strange; that actually looks like an S rotor mounted in a standard boxster caliper.

another alternative is that they didn't properly torque the axle nuts. this would mean the hub isn't drawn all the way into the bearing, allowing the wheel to 'wobble'

I'd guess the axle nuts aren't fully torqued, leaving the rotors too far outboard, and potentially having side to side play. It'd be almost impossible to change the alignment of the caliper, so I'd assume the problem to lie in the rotor.

Either way, make sure you get whoever did the work to pay for a bunch of new parts....

Sadly, the repair shop is in the UK and I am now back in Holland but I agree with you and the others that there are many things which they will haveto replace at their cost and I will let them decide if they want to come and collect the car and return itto me all sorted or for them to arrange for it to be done by a real specialist here and they foot the bill. Either way I can see a long battle ahead.

I think you are right about the long battle and am sorry for your trouble but keep us posted, I want to know what they did. I have rebuilt a few hundred rotors and can't figure out what they did. Thanks in advance and good luck

Update
 

Just had a call from the engine shop who now have their reply from the "Porsche Specialist" who carried out the rear wheel bearing replacement.

The specialist have told them that the rotors were gouged like that when the rear bearings were shot and that they decided that the rotors were still fine and didn't bother to tell me about the rotors, to save me the expense (How jolly , jolly nice of them to save me the expense of 200 pounds when I was already shelling out ten grand!!!)... The engine shop owner now sais that the specialist did indeed mention the rotors to him, but again, no mention was ever made to me.

They also state that when the car was delivered to the bodyshop, there was no grinding noise, so in their mind, the calipers were no longer rubbing on the rotors. When I picked up the car last Saturday from the bodyshop, there was a grinding from the rear left, right from the very start but I put it down to rust having formed on the rotors during it's months of standing.

The photo which is at the start of this thread shows, quite clearly, in my view, that the rotor is still making contact with the caliper and as a result, I have requested that the engine shop put their counter-argument on paper to me so that my solicitor can respond accordingly when I return from my family vacation in the middle of July.

It's a real shame that the engine shop decided to invoice me for the bearing and suspension work rather than just passing on the invoice from the "Porsche Specialist" as I don't have a gripe with the engine specialist at all and found their workmanship and service to be top notch and would much rather be able to leave them out of the legal battle which is about to ensue. I have told them this and explained that business is business, that the excuses don't hold water and that I will not stop till this all gets sorted.

I have told them in an email, exactly what I will be claiming if/when it comes to court and have also made them a verbal offer to drop legal proceedings if they supply 2 replacement calipers, 2 brake wear wires, 2 rotors and 2 sets of rear pads. I hope that their "Specialist" will see sense and supply those parts, rather than force me to go the legal route with all the extra time and cost involved for both parties.

Another update
 

I have just been out to compare the rear-end of this Boxster with another which I have sitting here and see that on this Boxster, the handbrake cable sits below one of the suspension arms, whereas on the other Boxster, the handbrake cables run over the same arm, towards the front of the car.

The White Boxster Handbrake attachment clearly shows the cable running under the arm, under tension and the blue boxster handbrake image clearly shows it running over the same arm.

Could someone please just confirm that the cable runs over the arm on their boxster?

The engine specialist took the engine and gearbox out from underneath the car when they did the work, so it would seem to me that this could have been the time when the handbrake cable moved from above the arm to under.

Here is the photo from the other Boxster to show how I think the cable should run.

the cable goes on top of the arm, with no tension.

To add some extra historical info:

Once the engine work was done, the car went over to the "Porsche Specialist" to have the air suspension fitted along with new rear wheel bearings as they were found to be totally shot (I bought the car with IMS failure so had never had the chance to drive it.)

Once they had fitted the air suspension and bearings, the car was driven to the bodyshop to have the stone chips sprayed out but they turned the car around and took it back because the handbrake system had "collapsed" so it needed repair.

They repaired the "collapsed" handbrake at some cost to me and finally returned the car to the body shop where I picked it up from last weekend.

Now it sems to me that a "Collapsed" handbrake system is a very rare thing to happen and that the chances of it being a total coincidence that it happened after the "Porsche specialist" did their bearing and suspension work, are zero.... Especially when you see the photo of how the handbrake cables run from the rear wheels towards the handbrake itself and if I had to fix such a strange failure then I would at least take a few minutes to try and work out how/why it happened in the first place. My daughter (7) could have spotted that the way the cable runs UNDER the suspension arms at both sides, looks totally wrong so my question is... How much negligance does a "Porsche specialist" have to show, not to be able to spot such a glaring error?

Sorry for the rant but I have to let off steam somewhere. :rolleyes:

That stinks for you especially when the repair is done at a distance like that. Tough to eyeball a guy from a few hundred miles.

Did you really put an air suspension on it?

Sure did... Only way to get it up my driveway without ripping the front spoiler off. :ah:

Video of air suspension in action here

LOVEEEE the GT3 rear bumper mate. Can't believe I have one sitting in my garage waiting to be painted and fitted.... picked it up in south china Dong Guan (the capital of bodykit manufacturing). Now that I've seen your ride, I am so going to get things rolling this weekend (thanks for the pressure haha!).

and the suspension kit is just amazing btw. Luck on the braking fix mate... if really it's their fault there are no reasons they won't make it right to you no worries there. Likely to take a few days to settle... give them time to think about all this and to get back to you (a week seems reasonable).

I'm off to Spain with the family for 2 weeks so they have 2 weeks to decide what the right thing to do is.... One thing is for sure though... The brake cables didn't jump from one side of the suspension arm, to the other, on their own and anyone with even the remotest clue would have looked at how the cables currently feed past the suspension arm and against the wheel rims and seen that it just doesn't look right.

It's all fun though. :D

My brakes did the same thing.
 

I have a 2001 Boxster S and my brakes just did the same thing (posts gouging rotors). I have quite a few mm before I even get close to the wear sensors on the pads, but have a groove exactly like your first post.

Did you ever find out what really caused it? Was it the wheel bearing, a mis-aligned post, crappy pads or do these things just do that?

You are the only other person I can find that's had this problem. Any ideas?