Ferdman, The car has 186k miles on it. the tapping started just the other day and it has about 1500 miles on its first oil change with me as the new owner. It sat in a lot for 2 years before I got it in the beginning of the summer. I do know the previous owner did not take care of it well only because of how some things were rigged on the care. I can't imagine that someone would maintain the car properly based on some of things problems I ran into after I bought the car.