Mysterious Ticking Noise......

Ok. '99.5 Jetta. 80,000 miles. Very nice little machine. But, I've started to notice something I've not in the past. If the vehicle sits in a hot environment for some time, as in the parking lot at work for 9 hours in the sun (black is hot in more ways than one) or I really drive it hard for awhile, whenever I am at idle, I hear a faint ticking noise from the passenger side of the engine. If I'm just starting it up from sitting overnight or driving very easily through town, no noise when we come to the light. Now, the timing belt/chain was replaced at 75,000 so I should be good there, but I'm not sure what's going on here. There is no notable change in how the vehicle behaves, but is this something I should be concerned about? Is it the timing of the engine adjusting to compensate for an increased air temperature?

If anyone knows or has an educated guess, I'd appreciate it.

-Andrew

AndrewP wrote:

Ok. '99.5 Jetta. 80,000 miles. Very nice little machine. But, I've started to notice something I've not in the past. If the vehicle sits in a hot environment for some time, as in the parking lot at work for 9 hours in the sun (black is hot in more ways than one) or I really drive it hard for awhile, whenever I am at idle, I hear a faint ticking noise from the passenger side of the engine. If I'm just starting it up from sitting overnight or driving very easily through town, no noise when we come to the light. Now, the timing belt/chain was replaced at 75,000 so I should be good there, but I'm not sure what's going on here. There is no notable change in how the vehicle behaves, but is this something I should be concerned about? Is it the timing of the engine adjusting to compensate for an increased air temperature?

If anyone knows or has an educated guess, I'd appreciate it.

-Andrew

yea mine makes that ticking noise too but no matter if its hot or cold and i found where mine is comming from the Fuel injectors possibly bad wire in sensor or such i can only hear mine when i have the hood up. im probably going to put new injectors in anyways might aswell replace the sensors too. it allmost sounds like an "ARK sounding noise" tick tick tick...lol as one day my spark plug wires were arking on motor, fix that with new wires n boots, not the bloody injectors o well.GoOd LuCk

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Jason M. Hulette

I have an '01 Jetta, and it would make a clicking noise when it first started up cold. I asked my mechanic about it and he said it was the lifters clicking because they were under lubricated, but once the engine turns over a few times, everything gets all nice and oily. One thing that has reduced the length of time that the clicking happens was I had the oil changed to a heavier weight from 5W30 to 10W30, and that has almost eliminated the clicking problem i have had. So you could either have a stuck lifter or somethings not getting lubricated enough. I hope this helps Smile

bettaa wrote:

I have an '01 Jetta, and it would make a clicking noise when it first started up cold. I asked my mechanic about it and he said it was the lifters clicking because they were under lubricated, but once the engine turns over a few times, everything gets all nice and oily. One thing that has reduced the length of time that the clicking happens was I had the oil changed to a heavier weight from 5W30 to 10W30, and that has almost eliminated the clicking problem i have had. So you could either have a stuck lifter or somethings not getting lubricated enough. I hope this helps Smile

What motor do you have?

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