Hi There,
After having my car serviced at Halvoline Xpress Lube it immediately made a noise when I turned on the heater / vent.
It sounds like “grrrrrrrrrrr” and there is a vibration in the dash and a little bit of vibration in the steering wheel.
It feels like the car pulls a bit when I have the vent turned to the highest setting.
The higher I turn the vent, cool or heat, the louder the sound.
The work they did was:
-oil change
-rotate tires
-pulled out two filter to show me the condition then put them back
I took it back a couple weeks later, they checked the filters, said they were fine, checked stuff, I don’t know what but they seemed earnest in their efforts. They took the glove compartment apart and poked around. They couldn’t understand how it was related to their work and suggested I go a mechanic and keep them posted.
It’s either an amazing coincidence that when I pulled out of their garage my car developed a problem, or that they did something goofy and don’t know what it is.
Any suggestions?
Thank you!
-Staci
Well Staci, in general going to any “express lube” type of operation is always a crap shoot. It’s best not to trust them and to just use a regular locally owned auto repair shop for all of your stuff.
It sounds like they showed you 2 air filters, and one of the is probably the cabin air filter. (Accessed from around the glove box area). If so then it’s quite possible that something fell down into the blower fan - who knows - a paper clip, a stale lost french fry, some guy’s wedding ring or whatever. When you went back did they actually remove the blower motor? That probably needs to be done.
On the steering and pulling, if you don’t have your tires rotated regularly (e.g. 5-7K miles) and if your alignment has some issues, it is not at all unusual to get funky handling issues after rotating tires. But what that would mean is not that they did something wrong, but that you need to go to a local alignment shop and have everything checked over.
As usual, I believe that cigroller is right on target.
Rotating tires after ignoring the rotation schedule for an extended period of time is most likely the source of the “pulling” problem. Tire rotation must be done on a consistent basis every 5k or 7.7k miles, otherwise you should just skip the rotation, lest you wind up with new problems.
And, yes, the noise/vibration in the dash area is more than likely the result of (pick one or both)…
…the cabin air filter not being reinstalled correctly
…loose debris of some kind that is hitting the heater blower
As to the car “pulling” when the blower is on the high setting, all I can say is that the OP is connecting two things that couldn’t possibly be connected.
And, last but not least, nothing good is likely to come from servicing your car at a fast lube place.
If it was a choice between no maintenance at all and going to a fast lube, then I guess that the fast lube is preferable, but the best course of action is to have your car serviced at a real service station, rather than at a fast lube place.