Rattle me Softly...

Photo Credit: Amy's Garage - (Not my cabin air filter)

Oh the endless rattles. Yes...mom...my irritation with every little rattle or drip comes from you. I am genetically predisposed to be bothered by every little sound or whistle that bothers me, I think this is the same genetic predisposition to not liking Wilco's neverending riffs. Yes honey...I'm blaming my excellent hearing of odd and irritating noises and my genetics for not liking your favorite band.

This story coincides nicely with yesterday's customer service post and something also must have been in the air because Ashley also told her own tale of customer service on her blog yesterday. See post here.

So I finally gave in to the flashing "maintenance" light in the Prius and followed through with an oil change that it was begging me for yesterday on my way home from work. I went to my typical Shell station for an oil change and carwash package deal. As predicted one gentleman walked in the waiting room to show me my air filters both cabin and engine. Yes if your car was built in the past ten years you have a cabin air filter as well as an engine air filter. You should change it at least once and a while. You may have a small family of squirrels living in there if you don't. Do not have it changed at a dealership or oil change place, order it online and change it yourself, Rock Auto is my recommendation. They (your oil change vendor of choice) will try to convince you that you should really switch out the filters immediately, this is there job and they obviously earn commission off of the upcharge or sale of the filter. Don't give in, unless you know the person and want to give them your money. I happily waved the guy off and told him I'd switch out the filters myself when it was necessary, that he could go put those right back in where he found them.
Fast forward to this morning...

Incessant rattle appears out of no where in the Prius. The last time this happened it was a tiny shelf in one of my gloveboxes that was not inserted properly. Low and behold the shelf is not aligned properly, I fix the shelf. Driving down the same roads as I do every morning, the rattle is still ridiculously loud even with small shelf now fixed. Its bothering me so much that I actually stop on my way into work at the same Shell station that removed my air filters the day before. I pulled up like I was needing an oil change and I told the guy that I had just been there the night before and my cabin air filter was rattling since they removed it yesterday. Without question, without double checking the accuracy of my story, with a smiling happy face (he must do Bikram yoga) he says "sure I'll check it for you". After five minutes of readjusting the filter and removing all the leaves out of the filter he puts it back into place and apologizes to me for the previous days employees lack of customer service. I was shocked. Happily shocked. I thanked him for helping me and was on my way to work, sans rattle.

Moral of the story. Mom check your cabin air filter when you hear a new rattle, it could be leaves rattling in the flow of air or if you recently had an oil change and they took out the air filter - they didn't replace it properly.

I must call them and thank the employee who helped me today, my Prius is not rattling me softly into madness any longer! At least for today :)