Engine Bay Sounds

[Oli77]

The other day I leave the car running and step our to get my sun glasses in the house and as I pass by the front of the car I hear a funky sound.

Not the hiss of the air, not the valves clicking away but a deeper "piston-like" noise. I open the hood and hear pistons clunking around.

So I search and I search, and I find many youtube videos with microphones inside M3 engine bays while driving, or people describing countless VANOS, or DISA sounds or air leaking sounds or clicking sounds. What I don't find is the noise I am hearing. Mind you, I could be completely wrong about this and all is normal.

I thought I could start a thread where we place a short video of our cars idling. This could give us a baseline from which to determine the presence normal, abnormal, and of course "funky" noises, for diagnosis purposes.

Of course it would be best if more of us upload a video or sound file so we have more data to increase our knowledge base.

Here is mine, noise is coming from the left side of engine (video). I would appreciate any comments about that piston-slap-like noise. Happens hot or cold, this is a ZSP, manual, 95K miles, no codes, power is good, new oil (0W40; Mobil 1; synthetic; Longlife 01 BMW approved) about 1500 miles ago.


https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/.../VIDEO0029.mp4

[TheFinanceGuy]

That is an odd noise.

Here is mine at warm idle

[328ioc]

Definitely sounds like its at the font of the engine.

My guesses are VANOS, water pump or pully/idler related.

I think if it was actually something with the pistons you would notice some more issues.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

[rguti153]

Mmmmmm

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

[TristanHunter]

Sounds like a bearing to me. +1 for WP or a pulley

[328ioc]

Let me add that my reasoning for VANOS is because it kinda sound like what a VANOS sounds like when listened too through a stethoscope just super loud.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

[rguti153]

Not good

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

[328ioc]

Its probably still a WP or pulley but always worth giving the VANOS a look.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

[rguti153]

A wp ? Water pump ?

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

[328ioc]

Yeah. Water pump. Lol

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk