I have an 06 Impala SS with 33,000 miles. Has anyone heard of these cars having issues with collapsed lifters? I sometimes get a tapping sound on a cold morning start-up for about 30 seconds and the sound goes away. I recently had the car to the dealor to service some minor warranty issues and had them check out the sound. They had the car a few days. The customer service rep heard the sound and told me he "thought the engine was going to come through the firewall." But when their techs looked at the car, they werent able to duplicate the sound, hence they werent allowed to rip apart the engine. Amazing. Basicallly they told me if the tapping continues to drop the car off and theyll listen to it again, which we all know is complete BS.
Any suggestions besides taking it to a different dealorship?

 

nah its normal. my buddies 07 w/ the same miles ticks fairly loud on a cold start, and we've had several brand new lacrosse supers' in the shop that did the same thing...i guess some bleed down faster than others.... they'll have to narrow it does to a certain cylinder, which will be tough considering it doesnt last very long...

 

its common, most people just live with it if the noise isn't too bad.. It is always an excuse to upgrade.

 

should be able to check how far the pushrods go up and down on the dod cylinders manually turning the engine. i would think theres a test the dealer could do manually setting the dod cylinders with a tech ii scan tool then doing a test.

that one who has to rebuild on naioa had them break and pieces of the dod lifter springs were flying around which wouldnt be good at all for engine/cam life.
http://www.naioa.com/v2/modules.php?...=asc&start=135

 

Yeah, I've had the tapping sound come from mines a couple times. Has me worried but we'll see, yay for warranty.

 

heh should hear the cackle mine will make on cold start up with the comp cam lifters :< would put yours to sleep lol. but trust me when I say you'd know if the lifter was dead or not, if just some loud ticking on cold start it's gonna be normal. Now if the ticking starts to sound like metal beating on metal, then ya got a dead lifter. I have a vid somewhere of how loud the noise is with a dead dod lifter.

edit : here is what a dead dod lifter sounds like, shot this right before tore the motor back down
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLdMN...e=channel_page

 

While normal does not make it right, in this case GM won't change out a lifter (all you would get is the same kind right back in anyway. If it eases your mind, mine is just over 56K miles (in 26 months) and will do the same thing for a 10 seconds on a cold start, up to 30 seconds if it is below zero.

 

LSX engines in general do this. The LS1 (had an 01SS) was really noticeable. My 06 Monte does the same thing.

 

Truth.

They all do it until they warm up--if it continues when the engine is not at normal operating temp then you have problems.

 

Thanks for the Vid Mixerda. This is exactly what my engine is doing now. I'm going to lose sleep for the next few days oh... boy....

 

Piston slap maybe? I know my '98 Z28 had it, cold start ups it did it every time. The colder it was the longer and louder it would do it.

 

Nope... i have a P0304 misfire code that won't go away. I have swapped coils, plugs, wires, and nothing has made a difference. Pulling the coil pack harness doesn't make a difference either. I can here the noise and feel the vibration. Engine is idling at 550 in drive and is only pulling 17hg. I will try to re adjust my rockers for that cylinder tomorrow and hope for the best.

 

That's not good, David. Might be a "cam only" car before you can go after the bolt on records

 

Mine does this when cold a majority of the time. Even in the summer. Mine lasts longer than the 10-30 seconds that some people have described. Once it starts to warm up, it goes away and when at operating temp, it sounds perfect. Because it takes awhile to go away, is this reason for worry. I know Nacho said that as long as it goes away when warm, it is ok. Is this the general consensus?

 

mine does it when its cold on start up for a while,