Hello everyone, I'm new to this page and so far it seems as though there is alot of information on the status here.
My son bought a 01 Stratus R/T Coupe with the 3.0 last September and it's been sitting in my mother-in-laws garage since. He starts it once in a while and lets it warm up a couple times a month. A few weeks ago he started hearing a loud tapping noise coming from near the front of the engine. It sounds as if somthing is hitting plastic. The noise seems to follow the speed of the engine. I'm afraid it may be the timing belt or water pump. He has been waiting until he got his license to register the car and now I'm fearing he may be looking at repair bills before he even gets to drive it.
I can get my way around an engine but the older I get the less I want to do it. Any help would be great.

Thanks,
Brian

 

hmm...how long is it running when you hear this? My has "Tapped" at start up for the past few years now, and it typically lasts up to a few minutes when i start it up...depending on the temp. it taps longer when its cold out. there is a pretty common issue with the valve lash adjusters, that most owners experience, but that is the tap that i spoke about first...the one that will fade away.

what do you know about the car? miles? has any work been done?

if it makes you feel better, the timing belt cover isnt hard to get off...i took mine off last october to have a look at the general condition of the belt.

 

The car has 81K mikes on it. The first time we heard the noise, the car was in the garage and my wife came out to see what the noise was. It did go away after a while but the second time it didn't go away and we have been concerned about running it any more since. As far as maint records the owners son worked at a dodge dealership and they gave us a folder of maint records. I have to go through it again to see if there has been any work done in this area but I don't remember seeing anything.

Can you run the car without the cover? Besides the obvious safety issues will it be ok?

 

im sorry..i didnt mean that i drove mine with the cover off. i took it off and inspected the overall condition of the belt, and belt area, and put it back on. however, ive seen LOTS of people drive with the timing cover off...

 

Honda owners drive with the cover off. Its cool I guess? You can start the car up and run it with no problems with the cover off, the only thing to cause concern would be the chance that something jumped in there and could mess something up, but if youre careful no worries.

Its either the lash adjusters tapping, or the hydraulic timing belt tensioner. From what I have read, that is the part that goes wrong when the timing belt goes bad.

 

yeah...most people who run with the timing cover off are generally showing off something like chrome cam gears...or in some cases, theyre just showing off that they have stock cam gears.

 

Thanks guys, The only reason for wanting to run it with the cover off was to see if the noise went away or help locate the source of the noise.

 

when you said that it didnt go away, how long had you run it? was it cold outside?

 

Yea it was cold but we ran it for 15 min or better. I had it towed to the stealership Tuesday night. They said it was the waterpump was siezing and tearing up the belt. OUCH!!!!

 

Make sure they change the water pump, timing belt, and timing belt tensioner when they are in there.