Technical > Automotive > Ticking noise from engine

Ticking noise from engine

engine1.wmv 2,245,578 bytes

Sounds like injector noise.

Try disconnecting all 4 and seeing if it still makes the noise.
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The talented hawk speaks French.

reply to Bob
I would take it to a Honda dealer since it's still under warranty.
Also, if you disconnect all four injectors the car won't run. and disabling them one at a time is not recommended.

Car is under warranty so I would just take it in and let them diagnose it.
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You don't quit playing 'cause you're OLD. You're old BECAUSE you quit playing!!

Aw, man I was kidding.
I thought that was too obvious.
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The talented hawk speaks French.

reply to Bob
I got your joke

reply to TA63

Yes, but they would have a quiet engine and would be saving a lot of fuel.

Seriously though, your suggestion about taking it to the dealer is spot-on. Comparing it to like models to know whether the noise is characteristic is an extension of that.
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The talented hawk speaks French.

I have no problem with trying to see what the problem is yourself, but when it's under warranty and that new the dealer is the only option. Why take the chance on declined warranty coverage after you try to do something yourself and can't fix it and make it worse to boot.
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You don't quit playing 'cause you're OLD. You're old BECAUSE you quit playing!!

reply to Bob
I disconnected all 4 injectors on my car .. WOW now its as quiet as an electric car at idle...

reply to TA63
I'll bet the noise goes away..

reply to Bob
Its the injectors, my Honda j35 motor has noisy injectors and make that exact sound.

Yeah, but there's a louder tick once every other engine revolution. I'll see if I can get a better recording.

You can hear 500 ticks a second? Woah

reply to Bob

engine2.wav 1,264,456 bytes

Made an unplanned trip to the Honda dealer today. Check engine light on / car bucking / no power. Turned out to be a bad #2 spark plug.

I asked them to listen to the engine and they said they didn't hear anything unusual.

I listened again, and the ticking noise is definitely gone. Changing the spark plug got rid of the ticking noise! I thought that was bizarre, but a Google search returned many instances of loose spark plugs causing ticking noises. Here's an example of one from a BMW forum:

said by some guy :

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My wife's 97 540i recently started producing a loud ticking sound that appeared to come from the left side of the motor. I did several searches on this forum to find that the ticking sound is very common with these cars and aparently normal as well, so i didn't worry too much about it. But the car was also sputtering when taking off from a stop in first gear, and recently started throwing a CE light as well. The code ended up being random cylinder misfires, so after searching this forum for that as well (possible causes could be spark plugs fouled out by leaking valve cover gasket, bad coils, and even bad catalytic converters), so i decided to just check all the spark plugs first since that wouldn't cost me any money.

During the spark plug inspection, i found that two of them were REALLY loose (i could turn them 2 or 3 times with my finger tips before they seated into the head) and a few others could be broken loose really easily. I inspected and cleaned each plug, and made sure they were seated properly, and the car runs like a friggin hot rod now, and there is ABSOLUTELY no ticking sound coming from the motor anymore at all.

Check your plugs! Just thought i'd share.

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reply to Bob
I've seen that once in 20 years.

In that case it was customer installed spark plugs that were the culprit.
--
The talented hawk speaks French.

reply to Bob
Yep I had this happen before too.