What Oil To Use

[Chicken Patty]

Ok I just bought my car its a 1997 Eagle Talon TSi AWD. The car is bone stock, and it drives probably better then my SRT-4 which was new . I'm really happy with it compression is good and everything. Now it has a very low but ticking sound, which is probably the lifters knocking a bit. Now the car has 138K miles. The guy gave it to me with a fresh oil change but he uses 10W30. Now could that oil be too thin for a motor with that mileage and cause it to tick a bit? If so what oil should I use, if not then what should I do?

Any help would really be appreciated, thank you in advance.

 

[kenamond]

Ok I just bought my car its a 1997 Eagle Talon TSi AWD. The car is bone stock, and it drives probably better then my SRT-4 which was new . I'm really happy with it compression is good and everything. Now it has a very low but ticking sound, which is probably the lifters knocking a bit. Now the car has 138K miles. The guy gave it to me with a fresh oil change but he uses 10W30. Now could that oil be too thin for a motor with that mileage and cause it to tick a bit? If so what oil should I use, if not then what should I do?

Any help would really be appreciated, thank you in advance.

I found that the ticking (if it's lifter tick) goes away or decreases as the motor warms, so I'd think that thinner oil would decrease the ticking (flows more easily). In addition, when I switched from 5w30 to 10w30 the ticking got worse. I recently replaced all of the lash adjusters (that's the proper term) with the revised adjusters a few weeks back, because the ticking was driving me crazy.

And I recommend synthetic. It has a higher thermal breakdown temperature, so you get less coking in the center section near the turbine. Don't know if the extra oil cost eventually exceeds the cost of replacing a turbo sooner or not.

Do a boost leak test. If it's leaking boost and you fix the leaks, it'll run even better.

 

[dsun87]

agree with what kenamond said

 

[luv2rallye]

Lifters develop varnish over a period of time which reduces the travel of the valve inside of the lifter. This creates slack and leads to the tapping noise you have encountered.
Sometimes changing oil to Mobile 1 full synthetic with Lucas Oil Stabilizer cures the ticking. But a very inexpensive, easy, and effective way to eliminate lifter tick is add a can of “Restorer” to oil (Walmart has it). It works every time on 4g63 engines and is the great "Wiseman Defiant blessed”! A more permanent solution would, of course, be to replace or clean them (see: http://www.vfaq.com/mods/lifters.html). But if you don’t want to deal with the time, effort, and expense of replacing or cleaning, just put a can of Restorer in. It’s so cheap you can afford to put one in after each oil change should the tick return. On my GST it lasts for 2-3 oil changes before the ticking returns. Other reported cures are adding Rislone or Sea Foam.

 

[DROOPY209]

Switching from Mobil 1 10w-30 to 5w-30 completely got rid of the ticking noise in my car, and my friend's 99 3KGT VR-4.

I had even taken out my lifters and cleaned them very well according to the VFAQ. The ticking was still there until I switched to that Mobil 1 5w-30 oil.

You should try it, it's worth a shot. Every engine responds differently. If the ticking goes away once the engine is warm, they aren't that horrible.

 

[Defiant]

As has been explained in the 200 other oil threads,

Which Oil Doesn't Matter.​