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Hey everyone,
So I totalled my beautiful 1999 9-3 on Valentine's Day, and I replaced it with a 2000 9-3. New car is great, but I'm working through some mechanical issues.
I bought it with 73,000 miles on it. It has had oil changes very regularly at 3000 miles, but with dino oil, and it had the original PCV system. I upgraded it to PCV version 6 right away, and I changed the oil with Valvoline 5W-30 semi-syn and added a bottle of Auto-RX.
I've noticed over the last couple of days that there's a rattling noise at startup that goes away after about 1 minute of idling. It's not really audible from inside the car, but from outside, it sounds like it's coming from the left (driver's) side of the engine bay. When I open the hood, it seems to be coming from the engine itself, and not the exhaust shield or a peripheral part. I don't remember if it did this when I bought the car or if this is something that just started--at least, I don't remember noticing it when I bought the car.
My worry is that I've got some valve clatter, meaning that I have oil starvation issues in the valvetrain until the engine warms up. I got the results back from a used oil analysis on the old oil, and the lab says there's no sign of sludge, but I'd be surprised if everything's really clean in there on a sludger engine that's been run on dino for 73k.
I know my oil pressure sender is working, because the light comes on when I turn the key to "run" without starting the engine. The oil light does not come on when the car is running, so the oil pump and main passages are ok, but I'm concerned that the oil isn't getting into the hea
So, here's my question. Should I just let the Auto-RX work its magic and hope that it fixes the clatter before more serious damage is done? Or is there something I need to do right away?
Thanks,
Matt
'00 9³ -- current
'99 9³ -- RIP
posted by 76.24.22...
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