Valve Tap?
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Member
Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 165
Likes: 9
'05 SLK55, Obsidian, black/red, light and premium pkg., COMAND with nav, airscarf, Sirius
Valve Tap?
I've posted a similar question before, but thought with the passage of time someone might have a more definitive answer. My SLK55 has what sounds to me like a valve tap. I’ve been told that the 5.5 liter AMG engines often suffer from premature camshaft and lifter wear. Does anyone have access to a TSB published by Mercedes that mentions this? Someone else told me it’s a well documented problem for these engines to suffer from carbon deposits if not driven hard, and the noise is likely one of the pistons slapping against a carbon deposit. I generally do not drive the car hard at all. I tried both an "Italian tune up" and Techron, but these made no difference. My car has over 40k miles on it, and will be going out of warranty soon. It has been making the same noise for 20-30k miles, and it doesn’t seem to be getting any worse with time. I showed the noise to the service advisor at my dealer, but he insisted the engine was making no abnormal noise. I’m concerned that I’m going to get stuck with a huge repair bill after the car is out of warranty and/or that I will have trouble selling the car with it making the noise. Thanks in advance for your help.
Super Member
Joined: Sep 2006
Posts: 772
Likes: 0
From: Bay Area/ NY
07 SLK55, 08 R32
I've posted a similar question before, but thought with the passage of time someone might have a more definitive answer. My SLK55 has what sounds to me like a valve tap. I’ve been told that the 5.5 liter AMG engines often suffer from premature camshaft and lifter wear. Does anyone have access to a TSB published by Mercedes that mentions this? Someone else told me it’s a well documented problem for these engines to suffer from carbon deposits if not driven hard, and the noise is likely one of the pistons slapping against a carbon deposit. I generally do not drive the car hard at all. I tried both an "Italian tune up" and Techron, but these made no difference. My car has over 40k miles on it, and will be going out of warranty soon. It has been making the same noise for 20-30k miles, and it doesn’t seem to be getting any worse with time. I showed the noise to the service advisor at my dealer, but he insisted the engine was making no abnormal noise. I’m concerned that I’m going to get stuck with a huge repair bill after the car is out of warranty and/or that I will have trouble selling the car with it making the noise. Thanks in advance for your help.
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Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 2,855
Likes: 2
From: Southern California
S600TT, R350
I have not heard about any abnormal camshaft wear.
Sometimes a valve lifter will get stuck and make slight ticking noise. Try running car hard to get oil temperature to come up and clear out stuck lifter.
Sometimes a valve lifter will get stuck and make slight ticking noise. Try running car hard to get oil temperature to come up and clear out stuck lifter.
