Dealership messed my car up.

[Sixguns]

I took my car the the dealership last weekend to have my valve cover gasket replaced. 6 hours later, I now had a misfire in cylinder 1. I get a loaner car for the weekend and then get a call Monday saying its good to go. Well, after driving the hour to pick my car up and driving back, everything seems to be working good. That is until the next morning while driving to work. Check engine light comes back on!!! After work I took my car to the local Autozone to have them check the code to find out what it was reading. I says I still have a large vacuum leak(dealership said that was what was causing the misfire) and now my heater only blows hot air while I am driving at least 40mph or faster. Not sure if there might be a connection but it worked fine Monday night while driving home. Any ideas?


Edit: Now it idles over 1k rpm and it used to idle well under 1k rpm
2003 Nissan Altima 3.5l v6

 

[Zenmervolt]

Everything you list is a result of a vacuum leak. Probably just one of the little hoses was left a bit loose. The heater control valves are vacuum operated in most cars, so that's why you're seeing issues with the heat.

Dealership probably just left a fitting loose and it didn't come apart until the morning.

ZV

 

[CrackRabbit]

Sounds like they broke the vacuum line that goes from the throttle body to the heater control valve.
Look for a valve with a small vacuum line on it near where the coolant lines go in to the firewall for the heater core. See if you can trace it back to the throttle body to find your leak/break.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say it is out of warranty. They are screwing you or their mechanic is a moron and forgot to plug something back in.

 

[slag]

I'm with CrackRabbit. They probably inadvertantly broken a vacuum tee or fitting and tried to repair it which is why it worked for awhile. Their glue or tape "fix" came apart and now its sucking air which is causing your vacuum operated HVAC controls to not function properly and causing the engine to not operate correctly.

 

[Sixguns]

When I got it back Monday, they said the cause of the orginal leak was when the tech put the cover back on, he didnt follow the right pattern and pinched the new gasket. I forgot to mention that I also had them replace my spark plugs since I know they were orginal and my car has over 100k miles on it. Now to get to the back side of my motor they said they had to remove the exhaust manifold to get to spark plugs so I wonder if they hit something while doing that.

The only good thing is that I got my money back for all of this, they paid for my dinner, and filled my car up with gas.

 

[manimal]

Glad they took care of you. I always hate stories where the consumer is the one left holding the bag.