My girlfriends car is a 1992 Subaru Legacy 2l turbo 4wd, 150k on the clock, been regularly serviced full synthetic oil every 3k. Worrying thing is, a 'tappet' type noise will appear out the blue, & dissappear just as quick. Either at tick over or at any revs. Sometimes it may not appear for days. It does get quite audible, sometimes it sounds almost too loud to be a tappet. Is it a bad tappet or just a blocked breather? I've been told the tappets are £800 for a set plus fitting which I think is an engine out job! Any ideas please?

 

sounds like a tappet, aka lash adjuster, have one of these on my WRX 94. Had it listened to and was told it was common for these cars and not worth worrying about. It goes away when the engine is warmed up.

There was a thread on here a while back about it, conclusion was it is a common thing and more annoying than anything else. Someone even said that in the UK manual it says this is normal and fine as long as it goes away when the engine is warmed up.