Well that was different...

[kickaha]

ginkgo and I are out to dinner, and coming home. I turn on the heat in the Jeep, and we are met with the more horrendous noise coming from under the hood. Sounded something like a cross between a high voltage arc, and shearing metal. Not good. I slap the heater off... and it keeps on going. Hmm. We're at a red light, so I turn off the Jeep, and restart it. All is good. We get to the video store, and are discussing what it could be. Ginkgo says she thinks it sounded like gears grinding, I'm thinking it sounds like an electric motor that has lost its bearings. In either case, not good.

I pop the hood open, and start peering down in there looking for anything out of place... yup, there's something not right - it looks like two small rollers the width of a fan belt, but... no belt. Aha, broken belt. But that doesn't explain the noise... it definitely sounded metallic. I look closer and it looks like a 4" pipe clamp, and the 'rollers' are the bolts to tighten it down. Okay, now I'm really confused since I can't think of a 4" hose in the guts of the engine in the first place, much less one that would pop the clamp off when the heater came on. So after waiting a bit for it to cool, I reach in and carefully pull out...

An oil filter wrench.

I had the oil changed last week at the dealer, and it's been warm enough this was the first time I'd turned on the heater since then.

The thing is *mangled*... I wonder if they want it back? *grin*

(Yes, I'm going to be calling them and requesting that they check the heater blower fan that it was banging against.)