Brad-

The flashing lights indicate a fault in the climate system that the diagnostics have identified and set a code for. The intermittent flashing would indicate the fault does not occur on each start, but the code should be held in memory so they should have that to go on when diagnosing the system. Often I will clear the codes and they won't return, so chalk it up to the swedish gremlins. I've seen lots of fans making the noise you describe- only replacing the motor will make the noise go away.