My Zetec has started making a noise that I don't think it used to make in its younger years. It still runs fine, and inside the car you can't hear any strange noises, but outside the car I can hear something that has me very concerned.
Its kind of a rattling sound, like kind of a dieseling, but it's a mechanical sound, and it's intermittent. I hear the noise every time I shut the engine off, or if I rev it lightly at idle, when the rpm's drop back down below where they normally are, I can hear it before the RPM goes back to normal. A light blip of the throttle and you can also hear it sometimes. If you spin up the engine it sounds normal. I noticed lately with the A/C on I can really hear a noise, but Im not sure if it's the same one. It too has a mechanical rattling sound to it.
The engine has 140 K miles on it. As far as I know previous owner changed oil regularly for it's first 98K miles, and I have done the same and am also running Mobil 1 synthetic 5w-30 in it. Did a timing belt/water pump change on it about 10K miles ago.
How can I find out what the noise really is? I don't know what I'm going to do if this thing needs a new engine
. I am barely making ends meet right now, but I also need the car to make occasional 100-200 mile trips.
Thanks for any help.
