1996 E300d

[lakerat]

Just purchased this car from a local lexus dealer it has 54,000 miles. My question is when the engine is cold there is a random clattering noise that comes and goes is this normal it almost sounds like a pulley or something , the lexus dealer thought it was one of the front engine shocks so they replaced one of them and he thought it fixed the problem but the next day I started it it was doing the samething I want to make sure it is not engine related does anybody have any ideas the car has all the sceduled maintenance done to it.

[TMAllison]

First look at the top of the motor mounts to see if they are cracked, separating or collapased. The inner most rubber ring stands 1/2" taller than the rest of the mount when new.

If not that, you could release the belt tensioner, pull the belt (can actually just clear it from the crank and tensioner pulley's) and run the COLD motor for 60 secs (max) to see if the noise is accessory related.

[lakerat]

I am begining to thank that this noise is a normal sound when the engine is warming up. Is it normal for the engine to make a clatering noise during warm up, after it is up to normal operating temp. it is very quite compared to my 84 300 Turbo Diesel? Thanks for any info

[TMAllison]

Valve slap? Mine makes a little noise on colder mornings (note that cold is relative in Bay Area, CA.) for a few seconds until the oil is pumping around.

Is the oil level good?

Assume you checked the other items mentioned.

[uberwgn]

Originally Posted by lakerat

it is very quiet compared to my 84 300 Turbo Diesel?

These newer car (606) are indeed very quiet, there's no comparison to the earlier 4 and 5 cylinder cars.

Mine is in the garage all the time and I haven't had the chance to drive it in very cold weather. I had a 1995 diesel, it was very quiet, too. When fully warmed up, one can barely discern any diesel combustion noise.

[DieselAddict]

Is it doing it only when you're driving or at a stop while idling too? If it's the latter then it's probably just a cold combustion knock, quite normal. Once the engine warms up it should be very quiet for a diesel.

[lakerat]

It only does this when cold ,once it warms up it is very quite. Would a synthetic oil help this in any way? This is a very quite diesel I can barely here it in the car.

[DieselAddict]

You should be using synthetic, but don't expect it to make a difference in the engine sound. Just make sure your glow plugs are all working (do a search on resistance testing) and some injector cleaner with a cetane boost will probably make the engine a bit quieter when it's cold and keep the injectors clean.

[aklim]

According to the oil life sensor, I got more oil life from the synthetic oil. Quieter? No. Unless you have known clean injectors, I wouldn't bother with the injector cleaners. My injectors were removed and cleaned when I reached 100K. Only 1 had bad spray pattern and lower pop off pressure. Before that, I have run injector cleaners of many sorts but still no luck. Only thing that made the engine smoother was the injector cleaning OUT of the car. What I am saying is that if you want to clean the injectors and then use the liquid cleaners, I suppose it won't hurt. Personally, if I keep the car till it reaches 200K, I'd take the injectors out again for cleaning.