chris_03tl

Wife has been complaining that her car makes a rattling noise while driving. I figured an actual interior rattle or something, but after driving it tonight it almost sounds like a pinging from the engine around 2K RPM under load (revving in park/neutral didnt seem to exhibit the symptom)

We only use premium fuel in the car so I didnt think it would be that. Also filled up another time since she started noticing the noise, so not that great a chance of 2 bad tanks of gas in a row.

Its an 03 TL-P with ~70K miles on it. Only recent service (aside from oil change that I did.....oil level is good BTW) was the tranny being replaced back in Feb. The noise is fairly recent so unless the tranny itself is going out again, I dont think its related to that.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

-Chris

Severin

Are you sure it's not one of the heat shields that has rotted loose?
It sounds like a pretty intense metallic marbling sound usually under load while driving.
Get under the car with a metal breaker bar or ratchet with the car turned off and visually inspect the heat shields and give them some good bangs to see if they vibrate. Just follow the exhaust manifold to the mufflers looking for any of the aluminum like shields. When you find a spot where it has rotted loose, you can either bend the shield farther apart or use a worm drive clamp around the whole thing.

01tl4tl

ck the ac tensioner pulley behind the alternator--top of engine
right miles for it to fail,
mine made noise from 45kmiles until ~80 when it got bad enough to merit replacement--part ~85,,labor 1-1.5 hours