PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum - View Single Post - What is a tick, tick, tick sound when idling?

BodhiBenz1987 · #7 10-31-2007, 08:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jbach36

As to the clicking, it does seem to go away after the engine warms up. Today I was inbetween 2 cars, and I heard it. But I know for a fact once it's warmed up, it's a lot less, or completely gone.

The oil I use is Rotella with soot control.

How would you fix a lifter? And what do they do? Like one person said, change oil and a few thousand miles later it could make a difference. I change the oil every 30,000 miles. Just joking, every 4-5k. Don't know about the previous owner, I bought the car with 89k on it.

Jeff 1991 300d, 112k

It's probably lifters. As it warms up it's easier for the oil to get into the ports on the lifters so they start functioning correctly. They eventually reach a point where they tick even when warmed up. How do you fix them? Replace them. That's what I did and my car became shockingly quiet at idle (OK, not really, but compared to before). However, I don't think there's any need to replace them immediately ... if you can tolerate the ticky ticky just let it be. I didn't replace mine until it got extremely annoying and constant. Then I figured, it isn't going to "heal" itself, and considering I got 220k out of the first batch, the next batch would probably be a reasonable investment.

There are other things that could make a ticking sound, but the lifters have a pretty distinct noise. If it isn't a nailing sound, and it's coming from the top of the engine (i.e., not somewhere on the belt drive), it's probably lifters. I think of them as having more of a "ping" sound than the noises other problems might make.