Tapping noise - SOLVED!
Gordon was fine yesterday. Have been driving him all weekend.
This morning on my way to work, started it and heard this tapping. Drove round the corner and thinking if it was the sound would disappear as soon as oil would get through the engine.
Noise is still there. No loss of performance, and from my (limited) experience I'd say it's a tappet. It seems to tic in sync with the engine revs and it happened in my other (diesel) car.
EDIT: It's not really a loud noise. It's a ticking that I know is there that wasn't yesterday. More of a click than a tap. No bigger vibrations and engine is as smooth as ever (apart form the extra click).
In that one, I got it solved by changing the oil from 15W40 to 20W50.
Someone said NEVER to put that oil in the MGF, but then I think it may be because of temperature. Here a 20W50 I think is perfectly fine. We're not going to go lower 15ºC at the moment and in summer we do pass 40ºC.
Considering Gordon now has 6k kms on this oil (Magnatec) I'm tempted to change it to see if this will solve it.
The oil I used before the expensive Magnatec was a Spanish brand and same spec as Magnatec but cheaper (Cepsa Synth. 10W40 with all same JASO, ASPI and API). I thought that oil was brilliant (and comes in 5 litres, not 4!)
Checked the oil level and it's just above the low mark. I'll try topping it up and run the engine for a bit in the garage til it gets to temp.
I'm pretty sure that noise wasn't there when I drove Gordon into the garage last night!
EDIT2: I'm not seriously worried as when this happened to my other car it was 2 years ago and hasn't missed a beat ever since. Covered a further 50k kms and does not drink any oil at all (some slight evaporation) and that engine has now 270k kms.
EDIT3: ISSUE HAS BEEN SOLVED (touch wood).
A combination of swearing and threats to Gordon, warming up the engine and the engine-oil additive to clean it up (supposed to improve compression and clean it all out) and after a 5-10minute drive around town the noise suddenly stopped. Will drive Gordon to work tomorrow.
Total cost of the 'repair' 5,50€ of the 'cheap' engine cleaner from the supermarket (actually Wynn's but rebranded)
Also bought some more engine oil (not Castrol Magnatec but Spanish Cepsa Platinum) to keep in case I decide to swap the oil. Will wait til it reaches 10k kms - 6k miles.
Gordon was fine yesterday. Have been driving him all weekend.
This morning on my way to work, started it and heard this tapping. Drove round the corner and thinking if it was the sound would disappear as soon as oil would get through the engine.
Noise is still there. No loss of performance, and from my (limited) experience I'd say it's a tappet. It seems to tic in sync with the engine revs and it happened in my other (diesel) car.
EDIT: It's not really a loud noise. It's a ticking that I know is there that wasn't yesterday. More of a click than a tap. No bigger vibrations and engine is as smooth as ever (apart form the extra click).
In that one, I got it solved by changing the oil from 15W40 to 20W50.
Someone said NEVER to put that oil in the MGF, but then I think it may be because of temperature. Here a 20W50 I think is perfectly fine. We're not going to go lower 15ºC at the moment and in summer we do pass 40ºC.
Considering Gordon now has 6k kms on this oil (Magnatec) I'm tempted to change it to see if this will solve it.
The oil I used before the expensive Magnatec was a Spanish brand and same spec as Magnatec but cheaper (Cepsa Synth. 10W40 with all same JASO, ASPI and API). I thought that oil was brilliant (and comes in 5 litres, not 4!)
Checked the oil level and it's just above the low mark. I'll try topping it up and run the engine for a bit in the garage til it gets to temp.
I'm pretty sure that noise wasn't there when I drove Gordon into the garage last night!
EDIT2: I'm not seriously worried as when this happened to my other car it was 2 years ago and hasn't missed a beat ever since. Covered a further 50k kms and does not drink any oil at all (some slight evaporation) and that engine has now 270k kms.
EDIT3: ISSUE HAS BEEN SOLVED (touch wood).
A combination of swearing and threats to Gordon, warming up the engine and the engine-oil additive to clean it up (supposed to improve compression and clean it all out) and after a 5-10minute drive around town the noise suddenly stopped. Will drive Gordon to work tomorrow.
Total cost of the 'repair' 5,50€ of the 'cheap' engine cleaner from the supermarket (actually Wynn's but rebranded)
Also bought some more engine oil (not Castrol Magnatec but Spanish Cepsa Platinum) to keep in case I decide to swap the oil. Will wait til it reaches 10k kms - 6k miles.
