Engine Ticking after Oil Change?

paintballmaniac · 11-14-2005, 06:16 AM

69K Miles on my 2001 SL2. Just recently (days ago) went from GT1 Crap Oil to Synthetic oil. Had Firestone do the whole oil and filter change. Everything ran great (and still does pretty much) untill yesterday. its 45 degrees out. late for work. Started car and waited 15 seconds for the car to realize it had to wake up - didnt give it time to warm up at all. Right as im pulling out of the driveway i put it in first and begin to go. ...Tick....Tick ..... tick .. tick...tick.tick.ticktickticktick... the faster i went the more it ticked every gear. today it does the same thing. When it is warm the ticking noise is so quiet people think im crazy i can hear it. But i can! and when it is cold ... it is very loud at first.

Also, my car seems to idle rough at stop lights. the RPM's dont seem to go down or up, but the engine hicups bout every 5 seconds just slightly and its very annoying. Are these signs normal or expected? or is there a possibility im running it into the ground driving it around? - thanks!

- Dave

my99sl1 · 11-14-2005, 02:30 PM

usually a ticking sound refers to low oil

paintballmaniac · 11-14-2005, 02:35 PM

Right i found that answer all over the forums last night. The only thing I dont understand is that why would my car be low on oil ONE week out of a fresh oil change. I went from petroleum to synthetic. My car has MSD Wires, NGK-Vpower spark plugs.. It doesnt burn oil with 69K Miles on it. Its practically new. Could there be something that the oil change did like something disallowing out of the pan or something? Anything else it could be?

Thanks for the Post though.

paintballmaniac · 11-14-2005, 03:09 PM

BTW checked my oil levels like you said to - its completely Full. All the way to the top, and the tick tick tick doesnt cease to continue. Only ticks on acceleration... what could it be? please help I dont feel like throwin a rod or somethin!

my99sl1 · 11-14-2005, 03:15 PM

is the oil level too full? like past the full line?

check the belts and it could be your lifters ticking,

so it doesnt tick when your idling? if it does try to locate where the ticking is coming from

Artificialist · 11-14-2005, 03:55 PM

What is the viscocity of the oil? Your engine should have 5w30 in it, otherwise the oil will have a difficult time flowing to the parts of your engine, and that may cause ticking.

**Ssicarman** · 11-15-2005, 01:54 AM

Noises are one of the hardest things to figure out over the internet.
If the noise took a few days to show up it may not be due to the oil change is the oil is at the full level. How clean is the oil? If it has gotten real dirty blcak since the oiol change then the synthetic may be cleaning out a lot of garbage and loosening things up causing the noise.
Are you able to get the noise when not driving? If so then try to track it down. If not then play with the acceleration and such of the car to try to see if you can feel out the source of the noise. It may not be an internal engine noise. It may be something external like a water pump or another accesory drive item.

paintballmaniac · 11-15-2005, 03:07 AM

Ok I have tried to isolate it - it appears to come down somewere deep in the gap between the manifold and heads. That is far as I can see. In that general area. Other than that, it seem to go away for a minute when its really warm and after zippin around, but when you idle - its back

Tommorow my car is being taken care of at Firestone. They have the Mastercare service center, and I told them the problem and wanted it checked out. "Never heard of that before, but we will start it cold and look into it on our diagnostic." lol. Im like "hell yes you will hear it when its cold!"

Anyways I just would like to thank you all for your replies, It always helps!
Saturnspot is the best damn forum I can find!

Let us hope this will be the last of the problems involving the tick... tick... tick...tick... tick... tick....

paintballmaniac · 11-17-2005, 01:55 PM

Well they could not analyze the noise (go figure) and they decided to just change the oil again from whatever was in there (they didnt know what they put in) to 10W30 Full Synthetic. Well, the noise is still very there, just not the same sounding tick im used to. Its different. What the hell can this noise be? can my 2001 SL2 work on 10W30?

my99sl1 · 11-17-2005, 02:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by paintballmaniac

Well they could not analyze the noise (go figure) and they decided to just change the oil again from whatever was in there (they didnt know what they put in) to 10W30 Full Synthetic. Well, the noise is still very there, just not the same sounding tick im used to. Its different. What the hell can this noise be? can my 2001 SL2 work on 10W30?

yea 10w30 will work with the saturn. I believe they say use 5w30 when its warmer outside and then 10w30 when it gets cooler.

What does the new ticking sound like? and where is it coming from?