Just wondering, my car is at 68k and since I've owned it from 49k I've always run 93 octane.

It's always made the same amount of ticking at idle (normal lifter noise?)

Less so when it's warm, simply because the idle is higher and it is both lesser and less audible over the increased sound of the colder engine at a higher RPM; but once it warms up you can definitely hear some ticking/knocking ...

It's not really that loud and disappears when the engine revs... How loud should it be before I suspect needing to replace a KS?

After 60k I did a tranny/oil flush, new belts, new PCV valve and a few other odds and ends. Has NGK coppers with less then 5k on them.

 

Engine knock and what it seems you're experiencing are 2 very different things, engine knock/ping comes under load(there's an article about it in the stickys 5th gen area), and the normal ticking/tapping noise audible at idle is from the injectors..usually.

If your car seems surprisingly slow/sluggish and you hear knock/ping under load, then that's your ks, of course check for codes when you think something is wrong with gas mileage and so on as the ks wont trip the CEL by itself, but it will be storted as a ghost code.

My car has 224k and has had the same ticking sound from the injectors since I've bought it with 87k.

 

thanks, definitely not knock/ping then. car runs pristine and pulls nicely through the powerband.

probably just normal injector noise then

 

It's strange, but some Maximas are louder than others, I guess we got one of the loud ones.

 

Ticking is normal.
Can you hear it from inside the car?

 

nah, just with the hood open

 

normal injector operation noise, most likely.