The Dreaded Car Service Visit

I absolutely hate taking my car in for service. Actually, is there anyone who enjoys this painful experience? Spending money, long waits, weird service techs.... When you're a woman, the experience can be even more painful. We're patronized and sometimes taken advantage of. Thankfully, I've found a good dealership with a great service department.....but the experience is never one I enjoy.

My car has always had road noise but it's gotten much worse over the past year. Then, something changed about a month ago and it's been terrible - frighteningly bad. I've actually dreaded getting on the highway. Not only that, but I've been really worried. The sound could not be good. And the sound got worse on curves, meaning the shifting weight of the car exacerbated the noise. This meant something was wrong with the wheels or tires.

Considering I already had to replace my tires at an absurdly early mileage (due to a manufacturer defect), I feared needing a new set of tires. But I did my online research before going in and found another possible, more probable cause of the noise: the wheel bearings.

Sure enough, when the service manager got in the car with me, we hadn't even pulled out of the lot before he diagnosed a bad rear wheel bearing. It was worse than he'd ever seen and about to come apart. Great.

They replaced it (quicker than they estimated) and even gave me a discount. This was after I told the tech that there were multiple reports filed with the NHTSB about premature wheel bearing failures. He looked down his nose and said "you can't believe everything you read in the blogs." Instead of arguing, I cited my sources and thanked him for the discount. To be frank (I didn't tell him this), this wheel bearing has been bad for a very long time and I've had my car in there at least twice since then - and they never caught it. Nor did the place that rotates my tires.

I feel quite lucky to have not gotten into an accident. That wheel bearing could have disintegrated on the highway, leaving me without a wheel at a very high speed. While the money is painful to spend so near to Christmas, my car hasn't sounded so good since I first drove it. Amazing! It's the best $280 I've ever spent (would have been $350 without the discount).

So, while my nice service tech knows me on sight, says my first name when I tell him my last on the phone (which makes me uncomfortable), perhaps that did me good. That and my charm - ha! It's still not a good feeling to be patronized because of my sex, but I was able to talk very knowledgeably about wheel bearings, thanks to my research.

And, just a warning... Most wheel bearings are now made in China, my dad tells me. He restores and rebuilds antique cars and most of his car buddies are complaining about these China-made bearings and how they don't hold up. So, if you hear a howling noise coming from you tires on exit ramps, beware. And, for reference, the NHTSB has all the complaints and service bulletins available for every car on the highway. You can find out what recalls have been issued and what others are saying about your car! A great resource!