One of my friends has an 03 with 25+ miles on it. Recently he started getting a ticking sound at low rpms. He pulled out the spark plugs and there was oil on one of them. He has a tbe, flash, safcII and a mbc. He was denied at the dealer today and they didnt want to look at it bc they said fuel had gone inside the spark plugs. So what can this be? Spun bearings? Piston? Damaged seals?

 

What has he been running for boost? has the power dropped since he noticed the ticking (if he has gotten on it) ?

 

Dont know, he said he didnt notice a loss of power and said the car runs great... He also had told me that the spark plugs were kinda white, so im seeing some signs of running lean

 

Im thinking he should do a leak down test to see what is going on with the oil on the plug. Then start looking into other possibilities.

 

Yo Steve, he was denied at sport, they wouldnt even look at it. Hes going to Holler to have them look at it but they are alot worse!

 

Fuel cant really enter a spark plug, but a leaking injector can cause fuel to to get in the area of one of the cyc/chambers.


Unusual Ticking is serios

 

Thats what the dealer told him, that fuel had gone into the spark plugs, but when he pulled them, it had oil on them.

 

pull the oil pan and check the bearings/rod bolts

 

Ohh ohhh and something else, take the oil filter pull it and then go get one of those cool cutters for cutting the filter apart.

Cut it apart and look for shavings etc.

 

Just be careful, I saw someone slice his hand to the bone opening a filter.

Think about the fuel plug thing, any fuel on the plug will immediatly vaporise when engine is running. The residing fuel/oil whatever seems to have gotten there after eng shutdown - I may be wrong though.

Good luck with your freinds car.

 

Put new plugs in and drive it a mile to the dealer.

 

He already drove it to the dealer and they wouldnt even mess with it, he was denied, the car is sitting at holler mitsu right now so hes pretty much screwed

 

Big +1 on this. Make sure it's not a spun bearing by checking for fine copper shavings in the filter.

Make sure that he isn't driving the car before he does this check. The more driving the bigger the problem can get. If there is no shavings then I would say a lifter may be ticking or it just may be a clogging injector making more noise.

 

Any more suggestions?

 

i would think the piston ring went out on the cylinder with oil in it, probably because the arc on the spark plug tip broke? like ttp said, put new spark plugs in, then drive it to a dealership. or somewhere to get a compression test, and a cylinder leakdown test done. but if there is oil on the spark plugs, then that means that the cylinder is not sealing properly and oil is getting past, such as bad piston rings. do the tests, and you should know your problem