Yeah, Ah...We Tried Finding The Problem, But It Worked Fine For Us

I'm taking in the Pontiac tomorrow morning. There's a recall and the dealership will fix that for free. They'll be working on the passenger-side airbag. It needs replacing.

"Hey," I asked the customer service rep when I called in to make the appointment. "Do you think when they're working on that airbag, they mechanics could check out a problem I'm having with my dashboard fan?"

"I'll check," was her reply.

Several years ago I began hearing a clicking sound coming from the right side of my dashboard. It was not something I could ignore--the clicking was loud. I did a Google search and it's not a good sign when you type in "dashboard clicking" and the make and model of your car and there are several links that pop up. Apparently, my car isn't the only one with this problem.

There's a quick solution--click the Recirculation Button right under the A/C button. The fan that allows outside air into the car is broken. As long as you don't need fresh air, you never have to get that fixed. And, from what I read, the broken fan is near or behind the passenger-side airbag. I thought, as long as they're going to be tearing apart the dash, might as well check out the noise.

So, after years of the annoying clicking, I'm finally going to get it looked at and possibly fixed.

Of course, what if it suddenly started to work? Highly unlikely, or is it?

As I left work today, I switched from Heat mode to Cool mode. Doing this un-clicks the Recirculation Button and the clicking begins. Only this time, as I drove out of the parking lot, no clicking.

Uh oh.

What if I took it in and the problem wasn't there? That ever happen to you? Have you ever told the mechanic exactly what is wrong and when you pick up your car they say they couldn't get it do to what you said? I'll bet mechanics hear that a lot. And I'm sure they want to find/fix the problem--it means more $$ for them.

Don't worry--after a few seconds the clicking continued, so all is well because all is not well. It will be interesting to see if they can find it, how much it will cost to fix it. If it's too much, I might just be driving the car home on Recirculate anyway.