Cold engine makes mechanical noise

[eddgie]

I have a 2004 Insight CVt with about 80,0000 miles, bought used about 18 months ago.

When I first purchased it, I noticed that the engine made a bit of noise when starting in the morning, and I don't know if it has gotten worse, or if I have just become more aware of it lately.

I owned a 750cc motorcycle once that developed bad piston rod bearings, and would knock when the engine was cold, and this doesn't sound quite like that.
It could be though that the motorcycle was air cooled and this engine has water cooling and maybe it is dampening the sound a bit??? But it doesn't sound like what I remember a rod nock sound like. It also seems a bit slower than idle speed would suggest.

Other canditates are piston slap and some kind of valve gear noise. I had the valves adjusted about 6 months ago though, and maybe that is when I started to notice it more. Just don't recall.

I am not at all sure what piston slap sounds like, and the sound MIGHT be at the same speed as the valve train because it doesn't sound that fast as compared to engine RPM.

When the engine warms up, the sound appears to either go away completly or become too muted to hear over tire noise. When the car is sitting at idle, if I open the hood, I hear mechanical noise, but having owned other Hondas, it doesn't seem to be more or less than a typical small Honda car engine at idle.

I guess I wanted to get others to tell me if their engines are a little noisey at startup and exibit the same behavior, and if this is just normal wear.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

BTW, the car uses no oil, I get between 55 and 65 MPG in normal running around, the engine pulls fine, and in all other ways seems to run perfectly. And whenthe engine gets warm, you don't hear the noise. Maybe for the first 2 or 3 minutes then it starts to quell.

Thanks!

[Eli]

Read through this thread:

Knocking/Tapping Whilst Cold

[AbCaRed00]

Here's a brief video clip featuring the normal start-up sound of my trouble free 165,000km / 100,000 mile engine seconds after starting up at -8C / 18F prior to the first test drive before purchase. It had sat six hours before the clip was taken after being started earlier in the day.
It had 5W-30 oil at the time and to the knowledge of the previous owner the engine was untouched.

Honda Insight 2000 Cold Engine Startup - YouTube

Honda Insight 2000 Cold Engine Startup - YouTube

The engine has performed well over 24,000km my ownership and consumes very little oil, [changed over to Penzoil 0W-20] using less than 1L per 5000km. A broken motor mount was replaced which helped dampen vibrations further. No untoward noises are heard to my ear and it smooths out in a few minutes under light load driving.

[edit: volume gain in video via iMovie = 0, recorded with Canon G10 camera, .mov>>.mp4 file conversion]

[eddgie]

Thanks for the responses.

And particularly for the video clip. Pretty much the same kind of sound I am hearing, but the car in the video actually sounds louder than my own car. But hard to know how much the gain was turned up for the recording. The sounds are the same though.

On my own car, I only really hear it if the volume on the radio is very low or off, or if the window on the passenger side is down, and only then when I pass a car parked on the street and the sound reflects off.

And it goes away in about 2 or 3 minutes of operation. Sounds at that point pretty much just like any Honda Civic on the road. From that point, I can't hear any engine sounds regardless of load on the car even with the windows down.

So, only when it is cold, and I am guessing it is valve train noise and maybe a bit of piston slap.

I love the car, and if something were to happen to it, I would have absolutely no qualms about putting a new engine in it, but of course I would not to that unless there was a serious problem.

I have though thought about buying a used engine out or a wreck and rebuilding it.

But for now, it seems like it is nothing to worry about.

Thanks again.

[Eli]

I think it's easy to hear a noise and focus on it to the point of psyching ourselves out. I've done the same thing. I listened, and listened, and listened to the valvetrain noise in Insight #1.. to the point where I was beginning to worry that a rod was knocking or something else catastrophic.

I borrowed a friend's mechanic's stethascope and gave her a listen. The bottom end was completely silent, it was all coming from the head.

Not that I'm saying we shouldn't pay attention to noises, we definitely should.. but yeah. The valvetrain noise is nothing to worry about.

[02insight]

here is a video I did some time ago. You can see its very similar to the other video posted above.. Notice how quite the engine gets from inside the cabin.

outside - YouTube

outside - YouTube