2/28/07-Car Trouble Leads to Surprise Culprit

No Heat & Sluggish Performance a Mystery

I really enjoy working in my garage on projects from time to time, and winter is getting kind of old here in Minnesota. So, when my wife mentioned that her car was acting up, I was looking forward to doing some maintenance work.

Lori said that the blower on her car was making a lot of noise, and sounded like it was broken. I drove the car, and as you might expect, there was no noise. Everything seemed to be OK.

A few weeks later, the problem returned, and was even worse. I drove the car, and the noise was terrible. It sounded to me like the fan had come loose from the motor shaft, and was completely shattered.

I got out my tools, and after some fooling around to get to the blower under the dash, I pulled the fan down, and found it to be full of dog food! About 2 pounds of it, I would guess. Once this was removed from the blower, everything was fine, and the fan worked perfectly again.

We have a lot of wildlife in our yard, so I figured that we had a chipmunk in the garage, swiping food from our dog, Ruby. Great watchdog! Her bowl is 2 feet from her bed, and she sleeps there all night!

I took the car for a drive, and it seemed kind of sluggish. Thinking that maybe the air cleaner was dirty, I pulled it out, and guess what? Full of dog food. This time it was the entire air intake, the resonating chamber and the housing in front of the filter. At least a half a bag of dog food was crammed in there. Now, I was sure we had an army of chipmunks in the garage, plotting my demise.

I drove home without the dog chow pre-filter in place, and was able to smoke the tires with authority. I set traps all over the garage, slathered with peanut butter. Surely, I would catch a dozen critters. In the morning, I got my answer. One little mouse was caught, and not another one since. That little mouse carried all that dog food up into my wife's car, one piece at a time! 10,000 trips at least!

A quick check of my truck resulted in another 5 pounds of dog food located in the air cleaner there! That mouse was a hard worker, and he knew his way around under the hood. I'll miss him... Yeah, right!