I recently had an oil service for my car, the first out of waranty. The day after I was at a red light when a horrible scrapping sound began from under the car. I was only three blocks from home so I quickly drove home to find the lower middle cowling which directs air from the front of the car to a small fan and held on by four screws hanging by only one screw. The scraping sound was comming from the fan. I killed the engine and jacked the MINI up. I turned the fan by hand and it was very tight. After feeling all the blades, I located a very tiny v shaped screw clip lodged between a blade and the fan housing. I removed it and reattached the cowling.

First question, is that cowling removed for an oil change?

Next, issue. The day after the oil service a odd vibrating/humming is occuring. This issue only when the steering is not turning either idling or driving. When the steering wheel is turned the vibration/humming goes away.

Any idea of what could be wrong? The service person checked off on power steering fluid level when he did the oil change.

I am atarting to suspect that the dealership/shop either wanted to get my car in and out quick and did not complete the work...OR they purposfully "adjusted" items to bring me back in as my warranty has expired.

-LGK

 

Why didn't you turn around and bring back the car to the dealership?

I would have pointed out the problems to the service writer and let them deal with it.

 

I live two hours from the nearest MINI shop.

 

Damn that sucks.

I would still bring the car back since they did the work on it and they have to guarantee the quality of the work.

Show them what their "grease monkey" did to your car.

Good luck.

 

Real Quick ?? You said you were 3 blocks from home? And the dealership is 2hrs away? So this oil service was NOT done at a MINI Dealership??
No the fan does not need to be moved to do the oil service.

 

The *fan* doesn't need to be removed, but if he's talking about the piece on the automatics that we don't have on manual cars, I think it may need to be removed to access the drain plug.

 

ok, then yes the duct does have to be removed to do an oil service on the Automatics. As for the metal clip, those are on the fan blades to balance the fan (may have been pushed off by the duct when the duct was knocked off and wedged in the fan.)