Whistling and smoking.
Those are the obvious problems we see and hear from a recent TikTok clip that’s gone viral with more than 150,000 views since it was uploaded in early July. While whistling and smoking seem like objectionable activities during a bar night pretty much anywhere in America, the clip in question—from Royalty Auto Service (@royaltyautoservice) in St. Marys, Georgia—is actually about a Chevrolet Trax that was hauled into the shop spewing smoke with noises coming from under the hood.
When the camera rolls up on one of RAS’ maintenance and repair technicians, he informs us the smoke is only the beginning of the problems with that vehicle.
“It gets worse. It gets way worse.”
What happened to the Chevy Trax?
Way worse, in the case of the 2015 Chevy Trax with a 1.4 liter engine, appears to include a bad crankcase pressure control valve (PCV) that is causing the whistling, possibly due to a blockage or a rough engine idle.
That means at the very least it needs a new valve cover, at a price of around $200 most of the time. Then, via a remote camera we see there’s components missing or broken from the intake manifold that will need to be replaced. The typical cost for that replacement is around $400 but can climb to more than $1,000 in some cases. Then we see there’s a coolant leak, which at least is a fairly easy problem to remedy.
Our lead tech does manage to throw on the rose-colored glasses before the clip ends, noting that the vehicle was brought in before multiple systems failed.
“You know what? She pulled it in here on a trailer, so she didn’t drive it. That’s good. It didn’t overheat. It’s not going to be the cheapest thing in the world. That means an intake manifold and a valve cover for what we used to have back in the day as just a PCV valve, but it is what it is. Luckily, we did find the coolant leak so that we don’t have any issues in the future.”
In the comments for the clip, one poster said the repair costs will be automatically covered by GM, though we couldn’t find any news reports confirming that claim. There are new models of the Trax that do qualify for that coverage, however.
Another noted that the Trax’s engine likely isn’t suitable for a vehicle of that size: “1.4L in a vehicle that large… have we just given up at this point?”
As a Reddit post notes, smaller engines in bigger cars are an industry-wide trend that in theory saves money: “By adding a turbo to a small engine they can get as much or more performance than out of a larger engine yet still maintain better fuel efficiency.”
@royaltyautoservice The trifecta! #chevy #chevytrax #cartok #automotive #mechaniclife #mechanicsoftiktok #autorepair #toollife #technician #diy #fyp #foryou #viral #stitch ♬ Pop beat BGM / long version(1283324) – nightbird_bgm
Another lamented that vehicles from the past decade or so have become too complicated to repair affordable, writing, “This is why I like buying older vehicles. What used to be a simple, cheap fix is now $1k+ jobs for nothing more than over-engineered imo.”
The Daily Dot reached out to Royalty Auto Service by phone, and GM via email.
