HLA tick (lifter tick)
I’ve been having this problem lately where I go to start the car and I hear a ticking noise. Usually if I let the car idle a bit and then turn it off and back on again it goes away, but today I was doing more driving than my usual daily commute and it started ticking really bad. Has anyone had this issue with their Miata as well? If so, how did you fix it?
Comments
What year is your Miata. Is it a ticking around 3000rpms
Its a 95 and it ticks all the time
Is your oil level ok? I have it too but it goes away after a couple seconds, I had it very bad one day but then I realised my oil level wasn’t even on the dipstick anymore.
For the lifter tick to go away you’ll have to take out your HLA’s and clean the old oil out of them. You can run thiner oil for a while in order to flush the old one out, I’ve seen some succes with this so you could try this first…
I checked my oil level and it was low! I topped it off and after a few minutes of idling, the sound went away. Im definitely gonna clean the HLA’s next. Is that something I can do at home or should I just have a shop do it for me?
You can try different oil viscosity. My car usually ticks for a few seconds in start up, if the oil level is low or if it’s very hot and I drive it for a while. It’s a pretty common thing though, search the forums because there is a ton if info there.
Alright sounds good. Thanks!
Do a oil change and maybe chsbge the viscosity and also keep your engine on a good oil level