Hi guys. I've been lurking for the last few months trying to educate myself as much as possible on Imprezas before buying my first one.

I've got my heart set on a blobeye wagon and when this one came up for sale a couple of miles away I thought I would take a look:

http://www.dtmcars.co.uk/used-cars/s...01311119823876

Looked good in general but one concern I did have was a ticking sound coming from the nearside in front of the intercooler. To my untrained ears it sounded like a tappet type noise or maybe an injector. Dodgy spark plugs have come up as a suggestion in searches as well. The sound didn't go away as the engine came up to temperature and increased in frequency with revs.

I recorded the sound with my phone which can be downloaded/opened here:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...oice%20001.3ga

I should point out that the recording does make the ticking sound louder than in real life. Was fairly similar to these:




The car was standard apart from a cat-back stainless exhaust, panel filter and dump valve (straight on ebay if I do buy it!). Two of the previous owners happened to be at the garage when I was looking at it and I got the impression it would have been fairly well looked after with regular oil changes etc. I was told it had just had a change with 10W/40 semi synth put in.

I've just read through about 30 old threads on ticking noises so I apologise for the boring old question, but talk of bottom end knock and other serious problems has put the fear in me!

Hopefully the next thread I post will be something more interesting like mods and work on my new Impreza...


Cheers

Dave

 

Some of the background noise sounds like injectors to me.

 

Edit video titled after timing belt is hydraulic lifter noise. An oil change should see you right. If it persists though you either need to service the lifters or get a new set in there.