My car started making a new sound recently. It's most noticeable at idle and it sounds like a ticking, like metal banging metal.

At first I thought it was just a pulley going bad because it's coming from that side of the motor, but now that it consistently happens every time I drive my car I can tell it's coming from the top of the motor somewhere. Any ideas anyone? It's kind of a sporadic popping, it doesn't happen every revolution of the motor all of the time, sometimes it seems to skip a few seconds, it also seems to quiet down when I give it a little gas.

The car doesn't burn any oil and in fact the oil stays clean between changes, the power seems to still be fine too, but I did notice I'm only getting about 18-19 mpg.

Let me know if you think you know what this noise could be. I won't be too disappointed if I have to park it because the Z needs to get fixed sooner or later so I might as well do it now if I need to.

 

There's a bomb under the hood........

Can you record a wave file and post a link to it so we can hear it?
I don't think anybody can give you anything short of a guess unless we hear it.

 

I can't record it, I know that would help but I figure it could only be a couple of things. I'm guessing it could be a valve, lifter, or maybe something to do with the timing chain, but I figured I'd post a thread and see if by chance someone else is familiar with the sound. It just sounds like metal on metal, it's in sync with the motor RPM's but isn't a consistent sound, not yet anyway.

 

I have a rattling noise like that too when I'm sitting there but it sounds like a heat guard to me in my situation or at least thats what I hope it is. I mean not a whole lot of things sound like a metallic rattling on a max like that, in my case.

 

i would suggest using a screwdriver, and placing it various places in the engine bay (using it like a s***hoscope) to determine where exactly the sound is coming from.