[Wrngway]

How does the sound change when you rev the engine? Does it increase in frequency; get louder; quieter?

My old LT1 had a ticking sound. The dealership wanted to replace the engine. It was an exhaust manifold leak. The moral of the story is that sometimes things that sound mechanical are not.

[e90drvr]

From the Bentley service manual:

"An occasional ticking or rattling noise from the hydraulic valve adjusters (HVA) elements may occur during cold engine starts or frequent short-distance driving. This condition can not cause any damage to the engine, and usually remedies itself with a longer driving distance or operating times at full operating temperature." (See attachment for the rest.)

I have almost 80k miles on 330 and have had a ticking noise for about 6 months now, even though I've seemed to notice times when it would get quieter. Just got the service manual and have yet to try this procedure.
My car is an (express) commuter that gets driven moderately hard on the regular. And if I remember correctly the tick on mine started after driving back from San Francisco (~500 freeway miles). Which could be consistent with the "continuous low-rev" theory but doesn't work with the "short-distance trips" theory.

I hope this helps somewhat. Maybe we have to learn to live with a ticking engine.

Do you hear the tick when under load? I can't seem to hear it when actually driving, only at idle or reving with no load.

[Snyperx]

Originally Posted by e90drvr

Do you hear the tick when under load? I can't seem to hear it when actually driving, only at idle or reving with no load.

I pretty much hear it at idle. Seems to get less as I increase the rpm's.

[Fastfission]

This sounds too fast to be lifters, they generally sound more like a fast distinct ticking. To take a guess, it sounds like a loose timing chain, or perhaps the manifold leak others are talking about..

[Phil325i]

OP I suggests you pop off the engine cover, then go round the engine (running) listening via a stethoscope or length of rubber tubing to one ear. You can then locate exactly the source of the sound (and get close enough to the injectors to tell if they are the culprits).

[Three_thirty_I]

Listening to the video it's tricky to gauge the noise levels, but it all sounds very much like my 330i. Since I've had the car there has always been an intermittent rattle from what I gather is the gearbox input shaft - that is, the noise goes away the moment I push the clutch in.

When I bought the car the salesman gave me an interesting tip saying that it is important to let the engine run into the higher revs every now and again for the upper parts of the engine to get proper lubrication - this began to make sense a while after when joining this forum and seeing the metal ticking thread. Now I generally avoid short trips where the engine does not get up to proper operating temperature etc, and so far more than 2 years later no metalic ticking from the hydraulic lifters.

But I do have a rattling noise which BMW can't (won't) seem to fix since the car is out of motorplan - they actually had the car for this before motorplan had expired but just fumbled around with a software update and the bare minimum. In my case I am suspecting that it is the DISA motor 1 that is making this noise and also causing a low rev stutter/hesitation. Check the symptoms report for a faulty DISA here...

[jean019]

Hi,
can't post new thread because of being new ...
I may going to buy a 2006/02 330i N52 (european). Except ticking noise, and steering wheel lock issue, is there any other issue on that model (rear differential maybe ?)
Thanks !