Wayne Smith

Glad you found the problem. At 135K miles I'm still on my original tensioner but am becoming tempted to change it proactively at the next belt change.

bgoetz

I don’t think the OP found the problem and I wouldn’t fix things that are not broke on these cars, they are built well an chasing problems that don’t exist just drive up the cost of ownership

Wayne Smith

I understand. This has been the least expensive car (cost per mile) I've ever owned and I do have a broad experience over many years. I almost feel I owe it some new pieces!!!

Doug H

Tried to do own work, tore it apart and then had to get it towed, got Indy to finish work, now sounds like engine is toast and spending hours to blindly trouble shoot. That dealer you publicly bashed without having any experience with them whatsoever could have diagnosed this thing for you in less than an hour FOR FREE.

Hopefully, just a belt tensioner, but mine never sounded like that when needing to be replaced. If internal and not a tensioner, perhaps not a great idea to keep running it until know for sure it is not internal. Sorry have issues though. Not fun to keep chasing gremlins.

renn.tp

Did you ever pin this down? Similar to you, I get a ticking noise at around 1.5k RPM, primarily when off throttle or very lightly driving along. Nothing to report of while idling or above 1.5k RPM. Car hasn’t really burned any oil in 3k miles of hard driving.