Brake fluid flush went wrong when my bleeder valve snapped at 3 PM yesterday

I was flushing the lines on my 2012 Civic and the rear bleeder snapped clean off, so I had to drill it out with a $12 extractor kit from AutoZone and now I'm wondering if anyone else has had luck with those cheap extractors or if I should just replace the whole caliper.

2 comments

2 Comments

mitchell.mark21d agoProlific Poster

Man, I've been there. Those cheap extractor kits are a coin flip, honestly. If the bleeder snapped flush and you got lucky with the drill, you might be fine, but the risk is you gouge the caliper bore and then you're chasing leaks forever. My advice? Run the extractor in with some penetrating oil and go slow, but if the threads look at all chewed up when you pull it out, just bite the bullet and swap the caliper. A reman one is like 40 bucks and an hour of your time, way less headache than bleeding it twice because the new bleeder won't seat right. And for the love of god, heat the caliper next time before you even touch the bleeder, that's what usually frees them up.

oliviapatel21d ago

Used to swear by those kits, but you just changed my mind on remans being the faster fix.