Well my heart has officially dropped. The other day driving home from work, I noticed some much more extensive valvetrain noise bouncing off of walls or cars that I drove past. I cut the music, and listened to it for the remaining drive home (couple minutes) while being very careful not to get the rpm too high. First of all there are no CEL's. I searched but didn't find anything that seemed concrete enough to say this is wrong or this is happening. I don't think it's rod knock, because it's not that loud or heavy sounding. When you open the hood it sounds like a tiny hammer hitting metal, but it's not a pinging type of sound, and it's not terribly loud. It is definately not the regular v-train noise or the normal injector noise. The speed of the noise does increase with the rpm, and when I tried to narrow it down to a specific area, it seemed like it was most noticable right over the UIM and injectors/fuel rail. It's too hard to tell exactly where it is coming from though, and it's really worrying me. I checked my oil, and the level was exactly where it should be. It has been about 5.5-6K miles since my last oil change, though I do run full synthetic at btwn 6-7 qts. I know that is waaay too long for an oil filter, and I deserve punishment for that. So I thought maybe the oil filter has failed or is clogged, and that I should get the oil changed asap. I haven't changed my own oil in a long time, never with this car at least, just because I'm lazy. So I took it to Walmart, don't crucify me yet guys, with my own Mobil 1 filter and Mobil 1 oil. Well they proceed to tell me that I have an oil leak from either my filter or plug, and they won't touch it for liability reasons. I haven't got completely under the car to see for myself, but my garage floor is bone dry.
So I went and bought an oil drain pan and a filter socket, and plan to just do it myself later today. I don't have any stands or anything to put under the car, but I'll figure something out or just break down and buy some. But anyways, I'm so worried that the oil filter is not the issue and my automotive world is about to come crashing down. I don't auto-x, but I did run it pretty hard the day before this happened. Red-lined, but not bouncing off the rev-limiter kind of driving. Nothing out of the norm. Other than that I am very careful not to abuse my engine/tranny. Any thoughts, tips, or prayers are welcome. Thanks in advance.
Oh, and over the last few months I had some CEL's saying that my car was running lean, but those CEL's are a few weeks gone with some common fixes.
