My car started tapping 3 weeks ago. I know I know I know... its normal for hydraulic lifters its suppose to sound that way blah blah blah hypocondriac (sp) hearing noise... Ummm not from me. I change my oil every 5000. I know its not the 7500 but something in me makes me want to do it every 5000. But rescently when I start it from a cold start it taps like a lifter knocking. It seems to be coming from the driver side bank. I dont drive it ruff, it has 68,700 miles on it. I drive to and from work (75 mile round trip) often from March-October. I love my car! So I called chrysler "My 5 star dealer" and they came and got it this morning.

Does anyone have a clue what it might cost me to replace one lifter?

 

If you are that **** about the lifter noise which eventually most all high mileage vehicles contract....why would you replace just one lifter ???
Not tryin to be a _ick here....just curious because sooner than later the rest of them will follow suit.

 

The reason I would rather replace just one is because I hit a deer on that side of the car back in november. Im just assuming that maybe the vavle has been jolted and cause an individual lifter to be out of sync and make it go bad. I just talked to chrysler and my dealer cost on an individual lifter is 10.81 and to do all 6 (intake lifters) its 2.3 hrs of labor and my rate of 45.00 hr so the most it could cost me is $146.74 give or take a bit. and if it is one lifter I will just replace them all for that price.

 

Tell me how to get labor rates this cheap... please

Most halfway good shops around here are nearly double that, especially for a Euro shop that knows Benz...

 

I work for Big O Tires in Terre Haute. We have a dealer labor rate through our local Chrysler dealership. BTW... RU coming to KaoticFest? Kinda off topic...

 

First off a car with 68,000 miles is not high. It should not make excessive valvetrain noise. I wish these cars had the quiet, more powerful, bulletproof, and way more inexpensive to maintain Chrysler 3.5 V6. A LOT of these cars have lifter noise.

My car went through a spell between 12-18,000 miles where it sounded like it had a collapsed lifter when it was cold. I changed the oil and that didn't help. One day I just got tired of it and flogged the **** out of it a few times and it went away for a while. The noise came back a couple hundred miles later and I flogged it again and it went away and hasn't been back and I have 31,000 on it now. It still has a faint tick but that's normal for the most part for these Mercedes engines. My car has had a bit of a rough idle and valvetrain noise since I got it at 5,000 miles.