I believe Samsus is hearing valve/lifter noise, a rod knock won’t last two and a half years.
@lbstefanski There are many things on your engine that can make noise, I believe the OP has a “ticking” noise from the valves. If you can demonstrate your engine noise in a video we might begin to guess.
I’d rather spend a few bucks on diagnosis, versus buying that $500 car, which will almost certainly be a POS, even if the seller says otherwise
The devil you know . . .
I agree.
IMHO it’s inaccurate to judge the value of a car to its owner by its value on the used car market. There are many cases where a car valued by the market at $500 needs an expensive repair but is otherwise in good shape and meets the owner’s needs better than anything that could affordably replace it. In those cases IMHO the car is worth far more to the owner than it is on the used car market.
However, until the owner has it diagnosed, he knows not whether it’ needs a $500 repair or a new motor. Diagnosis might even cost less than $100. To me that’s absolutely necessary and a doggoned good gamble. Note that the diagnosis charges will often be waived if the owner has the shop do the repair.
If the issue is really the same as mine then it shouldn’t require repair just some more normal maintenance. If it was me I would just buy a parts car for a few hundred and deal with issues as they come up. Everyone’s situation is different. As I already mentioned I took 1 of my cars to 2 different mechanics and they both told me the wrong answer. And charged me for it. I personally wouldn’t want to take a car and spend 25% of the car’s value just to get a possibly wrong diagnostic.
FYI, this is a resurrected 2 year old thread. Not sure if the reply really read through the thread or not to try and see if it was the same issue and result that I had.
I found the source of my engine knocking on start up by using a compression gauge, remove the spark plugs one at a time while engine is cold and test for compression that way. That’s how I discovered piston slap on my number 2 cylinder on my 2002 chevy Tahoe 5.3L vortec engine. It turned out to be weak piston rings & cap on crank has worn out. In the meantime I will use Lucus’s old treatment and 5W 30 weight motor oil until engine goes out then I will go buy a Ford LOL.