First off Welcome to the Forum and congrats on the new XFire !

The ticking sound is definitely, well somewhat, not normal. My car has 80K on her and only ticks for just a second when started up cold. As soon as the oil pressure comes up " no ticking ". I would not think a brand new car would do this especially if it does it all the time.

The "whoosh" sound will be a lil difficult to theorize on without hearing the car in person. But don't fret, if it's happened to someone here, I'm sure they'll chime in.

For the sluggish pedal, try doing a throttle reset. It's easy and only takes a couple of minutes.

Throttle Reset Procedure
Turn the ignition key to the ON position, do not start the engine
Press the gas pedal all the way to the floor and hold it there for 5 seconds
Turn the key to the OFF position but don't remove the key from the ignition and release the pedal
Give the ECU about 2 minutes to reset itself.......DONE