Hi all,

I am a 20 year old college student at CU in Boulder, Colorado. As many of you may know it can get extremely cold down here in the winter time. I have a 2001 dodge neon, had it since march of this year. I've had the oil changed ever 3000 miles, and just recently replaced my spark plugs and wires on my car. I have this weird knocking sound on a cold start that doesn't go up with RPM. My car doesn't have a tachometer, but i'd estimate that by around 2000-2500 RPM the knock is pretty much gone. It also fades when the engine warms up and isn't there anymore even at idle. I've read around the internet and many people have said that this is common for the neon to do this. Is this true? I know the previous owner of this car pretty well. I bought this car from the local dodge dealer in town. Funny how things worked out. I still ended up paying 4 grand for this thing. i bought it with 124k and I commute 30 minutes a day to school so it's gone up to 138k in the months i've had it. The previous owner took really good care of this car. Its had its timing belt as well as water pump replaced at around 100k. He's also done all sorts of maintenance to this thing. Should i worry about this knock? I haven't really driven this thing that hard so if my engine were to go bad, I must say, 4 grand for this car was a rip off.

 

ohh and to elaborate more on that p0420, it seems as though new spark plugs did the trick. I'll definately keep an eye out for that light, but it's been a few days since it's been on

 

i have the same knock... have you recieved any replies???

 

Try some Oil Stabilizer like BG-MOA or Lucas. Sometimes it helps on old engine.

 

the stabilizer is the only response so far, thanks, i'll try that out, also, i have another question, my P0420 check engine code came back on again. I tested my converter out, it passes both the temperature test and the pressure test. Could it be a lazy rear O2 sensor? what do you guys think?