I took my 2011 HHR LT to the GM dealer this week for LOF and tire rotation. Day and a half later, not more than 40 miles since the service, I am driving 45 mph through a busy shopping area. I quickly change lanes and suddenly there is a roaring, grinding sound from what sounds like the passenger front wheel. Sounds like the traction control when trying to drive through unplowed street, but in this case the street is dry. Car continues to drive fine, but the traction light is flashing. I turn off the traction control but sound continues and light keeps flashing. Then "Service ESC" comes on DIC. I pull over into a parking lot and turn off the car. I do the usual roadside issue steps: open hood check oil, look for any obvious issues, walk around the car with a look of consternation, check the front passenger wheel. I get back in the car, fire it up. Service ESC light does not come on. DIC is normal. I start driving, no noise from the front wheels. Traction control is on but no warning flashing light. Any ideas? Did the technician mess something up when doing the tire rotation?

 

Might have a bad hub.

 

X2 bad hub take it back to the place that last worked on it.

 

Was the car trying to steer itself? Or, just the ABS noise. Did they do an alignment? Is the steering wheel centered? Has it always been? Did you manually check the air pressure, it is unlikely that they reset the TPM positions.

 

They did reset the tire pressure to 31 psi. My DIC always read tire pressure between 32-34, so I was surprised they lowered it to 31. Car was not trying to steer itself, but you're right, it was ABS type noise. I'll have to check on the steering wheel center.

 

I actually asking about the positions not the pressure. The correct pressure (for tires & wheels from the factory) is on the placard on the driver door sill.

If the traction light is ON the traction control is OFF if it is flashing it is active. See page 4-31 in the 2011 Owner Manual.

When the ESC activates it tries to steer the car out of a skid by applying the brakes with the ABS system. Both systems use wheel speeds as an input. They may have damaged a speed sensor wire.

 

I found a video on resetting the TPMS on a Saturn Aura. Since the wheel and DIC look the same as the HHR, I'm going to try it on my vehicle. Another video indicates it's common service centers don't reset the TMPS after tire rotation.

 

Why not just do the correct procedure that is in your Owners Manual ?

Don't have a manual ? We have them free for download on this site. Even Donbrew has a link to them in his signature.
(not as if Don hasn't mentioned that link about a thousand times over the years. But most people seem to ignore Don's helpfulness. )

 

The ONLY way to reset the TPMS positions on a 2011 is with a EL-50448 tool. You can get them for under $15 on eBay.

The guy in the second vid uses a Martek tool, it does the same thing. You cannot do the air release, they changed sometime in the 2010 model year.

The reason I doubt the dealership did it on a rotation is that they use the lot boys to do tire work.

 

Hard to see a tire rotation doing this, but... stuff happens, I guess.