Ticking in engine of grand am (idle, valve, exhaust, Audi)
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Some of you may remember me with the Oldsmobile with the interesting problem of not wanting to turn on while the engine was hot. Long story short, back end got screwed up and was cheaper for me to get a new car than to repair the Olds and get it road worthy again. Now I have a 04 Pontiac Grand Am that has a ticking issue, I've already checked the oil, it's full, and was just changed out as I bought the car. The ticking is only there when the engine is cold, after driving for about 5 minutes it disappears, and even when it is there it is only audible when pressing the gas. No ticking when idle at a stop sign, no ticking after the engine has warmed a little. Any ideas?
Without being able to hear it, we will just have to guess from afar, but two possibilities are...
Sticky valve lifters
This would be the likely result of oil changes that were not done frequently enough. Even though you just changed the oil, what do you know about the previous owner's oil change regimen? I would suggest changing the oil & filter again in a couple of weeks, using full synthetic oil, and then change the oil & the filter once again in a few weeks. If there is built-up crud in the engine, this might get rid of some of that crud.
Piston slap
This is something that is supposedly not damaging to the engine, and which usually goes away when the engine warms-up.
Is it a fast tick like tick,tick,tick,tick,tick,tick tempo or tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
Fast tempo is valves/lifters/cam slower tempo is pistons/rods/crank.
First thing is be sure it's coming from the engine itself. I've actually had belt tensioners trick me before. More often than not, they squeal vs tick, but..
The tempo of the tick is proportional to the RPMs... Low RPMs, it goes tick.tick.tick.tick. More RPMs it is more of a ticktickticktick. Lasts for about 2 or 3 minutes then stops.
Find out if the ticking is directly related to the RPM. In other words, twice the RPM, twice the ticking speed? Reliably? But the ticking speed is a tiny fraction of the RPM?
It sounds to me like the higher ticking speed is from the higher power, not directly from the higher RPM.
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