My car has been making a funny noise for the past few months… it runs fine though (nice & smooth!). The noise is kind of like a ticking (it’s a bigger sound than just a simple tick, but I just don’t have better words to describe it) coming from under the hood… & it has steadily gotten louder as time goes on. The ticking changes tempo with the speed of the car (like a roulette wheel… when I’m going fast, the tick goes fast and when I slow down the tick steadily slows as well). My car has a manual transmission and the tick will happen whether I am in gear or not… provided the car is in motion. If I am parked and idling the tick does not happen and everything sounds normal. When I come up to a stoplight, whether I coast out of gear or drive up in gear, AFTER I stop the tick will continue to wind down until it dies out (so I will be at a full stop and it will continue to tick itself out, like a roulette wheel). My question is: what the heck is it and how much will it cost me to fix? Also, how safe am I driving it? I have a 2 year old daughter and am nervous driving around in it. Please Help!!!
That sounds like a good description of a CV joint getting ready to fail. I suggest you have a mechanic (not a quick oil change place or Sears) check it out. The CV joint can fail without additional warning and can leave you stranded in the fast lane on the freeway. When it fails all you can do is coast to a stop.
"When I come up to a stoplight, whether I coast out of gear or drive up in gear, AFTER I stop the tick will continue to wind down until it dies out (so I will be at a full stop and it will continue to tick itself out, like a roulette wheel)."
Would the CV Joints continue to tick after the vehicle was stopped? But for the life of me I can’t think of anything that winds up/down independent of the drive train???
A couple of questions: Does your car always do this or are there times it doesn’t? Does it do it more when the car is hot or cold or doesn’t it matter? Does the outside temperature affect how much it does this? Do you know if your car has an electric cooling fan for the radiator or is it an engine-driven ‘clutch fan’?
Those are the lines along which I am thinking, also.
If this car has an engine-driven fan (with clutch) for the radiator, as opposed to an electrically powered fan, it is entirely possible that the OP is hearing the fan hitting its shroud. This would be particularly possible if the car has been in a minor collision.
Thanks for your replies. To answer your questions, yes my car always makes this noise (besides the time we took it to the mechanic when the noise very first appeared. The tick disappeared then, of course. But that was 2 months ago and the tick has been consistent ever since). It ticks whether it’s hot or cold as well. I THINK the car has an electric cooling fan. I did a little online research and from what I understand most elantra’s have the electric cooling fan (I could be wrong in this though, I could not find a definitive answer for the 2003 model).
To answer VDCdriver; yes my car has been in 2 minor fender benders (it was rear-ended twice within a year). Both were very minor however and both happened in 2004.
Thank you again for your respones 
I don’t think you have to worry about a break down happening on the road with this issue. Along with the cooling fan suggestion as the trouble; you don’t have the wheels with spinners on them do you?
I’m thinking the radiator cooling fan too.
As you drive down the road the air forced thru the radiator is causing the fan to spin. The faster you go the faster the fan spins. When coming to a stop the spinning fan coasts down to a stop and the ticking stops.
Open the hood and try spinning the fan by hand to see if the noise can be reproduced.
Tester