My 2004 has 20,000 miles and is quiet at start up.
I use Mobil 1 0W40 synthetic oil.

 

I don't hear any knock, but my engine is somewhat wheezy for the first few seconds after start up.

2004 with 29K miles.

 

My '04 has some loud lifter tick at startup but doesn't go away it is very irritating and kind of embarrassing. When you here it you think OH 150,000 km on it and i only have 25,000 km on it. It is going to go in to a M/B shop and i'm going to get it in writing and then i'm going to go to my service center and give them the estimate and diagnosis. As a mechanic my self this is not a normal sound that should be coming from an engine with this low km on it.

 

do you change your own oil or have someone do it ? what type <synthetic or conventional> and weight of oil is used.

 

I will be changing the oil at the chrysler dealer as i have only had the car a week i havent changed it yet but it is one of the first things we are going to do before we start driving the car. 0w40 synthetic mobil 1.

 

The ticking or "knocking" that some of you are referring to it as is the lifters...when the car sits, the oil drains down and for a split second, you will notice them...when the oil reaches them, the noise stops.

 

It may sound silly, but if you haven't figured out your problem yet... check the spark to all 12 of your plugs and make sure they are all firing properly... Anyone who thinks I'm crazy, go ahead and pull a plug wire from the second plug of a single cylinder and then drive the car around the block... It should sound like you threw a rod...

Also run a scantool and see if any DTC's are present... IF you don't have a scantool, make an appointment at a Chrysler dealer to run a diagnostics check only and give you the printout... This should only cost you $30...Have them run all of the pertinent engine PID's especially the misfire monitor, knock sensor, fuel trim and timing retard... Then post the results back here and we can probably isolate your problem...

 

Driver1,

Haven't been on the forum in a while. If you do a search of my postings you will see i had the same problem with my base coupe and i got it lemon'd by chrysler and they replaced the car with a new Limited Coupe NO NOISE EVER WITH THAT ONE up until 40,000 lease end. I had a CLK 320 with the same engine and it had its lifters replaced 3 times from new at Mercedes. This is a flaw of this engine. Don't let anyone else tell you to check piston or oil because its a simple failure of the lifters. And in my car it started the noise only at startup and then eventually it became an ever present noise and would get louder as the revs would climb and at that point it was lemon'd. I have lots of experience with this engine in both my present crossfire and my past Mercedes Benzes. Take the car to a BENZ mechanic and see what he'll tell you then take that documentation to Chrysler and push for a replacement. The problem and noise will get worse. My current Crossfire that i got for collector purposes has been having the same problem. And now i've been driving it more often and the noise is just louder and louder and embarrassing. I'm getting ready to have the lifters replaced on that one since the dealer where i got my 3 crossfires knows me well with the incident and knows what to do. Also i'd recommend the extended Daimler Chrysler service plan i got it and i'm glad i did.

 

Ok so i took my '04 crossfire in for service and to get a few minor warranty items fixed one being the engine tick. The car was dropped of on the saturday before we left for holiday and we told them that they could have the car for a week. Well its been 10 days now. It took 3 phone calls to get any info on what was going on with the car and finally i got an answer today. They have ordered new camshafts for the engine. They will be here in 5 to 7 days and then the install. Oh well i'm not to happy being with out the car for the remainder of my holiday but at least its being addressed without any hassle.

 

best of luck. sadly i traded mine in on a 300C, just couldn't take the dealer learning curve anymore or the downtime as it was my only transportation.

 

I was just looking through the service manual...We have sodium filled exhaust valves...This is used for dissipating heat. Exhaust valves do tend to get hot...but I'm not sure they get THAT hot. I'm speculating that the spring pressure is WAY up there to get these engines to turn 6,000 RPM. Higher force = higher heat. With high spring pressures the "tappets" tend to bleed down. This is especially true when the oil is hot and has a lower viscosity.

Just a thought.

BTW...my 2005 ticks a little too!

 

My '04 has 14k on it and taps a little when it's cold but after a minute or so it stops. It has a little bit of a valvetrain whirring and slight tick but it's nothing that worries me too much, but I'm used to Neons and such which is probably why lol. They all do that. When it starts tapping all the time is when I'll start to worry.