Hey guys, brand new to the forums here. I have some horrible ticking noises coming from my car. (09 TL SHAWD +Tech) I attached a sound clip. I've researched the J series engines and found that this is either a common issue or its my valves out of adjustment.

Take a listen.

Here!

Any opinions? Should I take it to the dealership to inspect? Is my engine about to blow up ??

 

Hard to tell if you are not standing in front of the engine in person. But this engine sounds healthy to me. Some more info like service history, mileage, oil level, gas octanes, and temperature may be helpful. The ideal would be to post fuel trims, long and short along with air to fuel ratio etc. So you see, sound clips can't really tell us much about whats going on. If you are seriously concerned you can take it to a dealer to have a look at it. But, again, that engine sound pretty healthy to me.

 

Thats comforting to hear. I agree, a simple sound clip isn't gonna do much but I was standing in front of the car with the hood open. And to be honest, I just bought the car on Saturday so I don't know the service history. It has 120,000 miles on it and it doesn't seem to burn oil (I check everyday and it remains full).

Again, I only put 91 Octane in it and as far as service history goes, it's unknown as this is a new car to me.

 

I think it should sound quieter. I will need to be outside the next time the car is running.

 

Okay, Ill take it to the dealership to have em take a listen.

 

One key question for the dealership is to ask them if the timing belt, plugs have changed and if there was a valve lash clearance adjustment made when A14 code came up in the maintenance minder... you have 120k miles on it so chances are the major service was done, or at least you hope it was! They could plug in their tablet and see if there is a service history loged in the computer.

 

Any update to this?

 

Yeah I took it to the dealership! And they told me it was normal fuel injector noise. They pulled up the maintenance records and there was the A14 maintenance done.

But being me, I was skeptical about fuel injector noise so I bought a mechanics stethoscope and took a listen and sure enough it was only fuel injector noise that I heard. The injectors are kinda noisy.

Bottom line is I guess...J-series is kinda noisy.

 

Thanks for the update! Posting solutions/answers help all members diagnose similar problems.

At least you were able to narrow down the culprit. Were you able to find records to see if Timing Belt service has been done? I plan to tackle this.

 

Yeah I pulled up the Carfax report and the timing belt was changed at 101,703 miles. I'm currently at 120,xxx miles right now.