Today I rolled the car into the garage to do a tire rotation and an oil change. I let the engine warm up and listened to how the engine was sounding and It sounded a little rough. A few months ago, it was more of a purring sound and now it's more like a diesel. This is starting to scare me because I remember the car sounding something like this a little before the timing belt broke. I should be able to go another 15k before getting another TB job done since I had it done about 45k mi ago. I'm never late on my oil changes and I always use full synthetic so I don't see how it could be an internal problem already. I can't afford another engine again, so do you guys think I should just look into selling it?

 

It's a little premature to be talking about selling her before you actually know what's wrong, don't you think?

Besides, you're going to have to know what's wrong with her even if you were going to sell it. If it needs a timing belt job, and you're not going to do it before you sell it, you should do the right thing and be honest with potential buyers.

Are you getting any codes? How many miles on the engine? How long since the last timing belt job? Ever had the fuel filter replaced? How about the plugs & plug wires?

 

Cam chain tensioner?

 

-No codes
-About 100k on the engine
-Timing belt job done 45k mi ago
-Never changed fuel filter, but I don't understand how that could make the engine sound bad
-The coil packs are good, but it might be time to replace the plugs already

I'm pretty sure it's not that. I don't particularly hear noise coming from the back.

 

Does it smell like it's running too rich? I wonder if the coolant temperature sensor could be on the way out.

 

The exhaust fumes smell clean and there's no smoke, so I don't think it's running rich. I do have a small oil leak from a seal in the front and from the crankshaft breather, maybe it opened up more causing engine noise to increase?

 

I put in some new plugs since it was missing a little under boost and borrowed a listening device to see where the sound was coming from. It seemed to be coming from the dampener pulley or another one around that area.