Hi,

I'm prepping my Sporting to sell and one thing it does occasionally is make a sort of thrashing noise when I start it. It starts up every time without issue but it does sound a bit odd.

What could it be?

Thanks

Is it like a grinding noise for a second or two?

SB1500 said:

Is it like a grinding noise for a second or two?

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Yes, just for a second at most...

It will be the starter Motor. My MJ used to do it on cold mornings.

dozer said:

It will be the starter Motor. My MJ used to do it on cold mornings.

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Bah, guess it is on the way out, any rough idea of replacement cost?

Already needs a new fuel pump to pass the MoT (it is leaking) at a cost of £450inc fitted, plus the MoT fee, now this...

Mine did it for 2 yrs. let it develop!
That's expensive for the fuel pump. This is why I went for a petrol this time. Starter about £70 I reckon

dozer said:

Mine did it for 2 yrs. let it develop!
That's expensive for the fuel pump. This is why I went for a petrol this time. Starter about £70 I reckon

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Indeed the fuel pump part itself is £300+ for a reconditioned one. It still runs okay but the cabin smells of diesel and the leak is enough for an MoT fail. I'll sit on the starter for now then, not ideal when you're looking to sell though...

Not sure about fuel pump on the diesel, my petrol one costed £140 from Bosch new and fitting takes 2 minutes.

My starter is also on it's way out and doing the same. I'm advised to leave it until the car won't start

TIMING CHAIN ,,,,,, first thing in morning with cold engine listen to top of engine on the left hand side as you look in. VERY important
If you've done more than 100,000 and you intend to keep it I would change it any way

Ahh yes the good old timing chain! It'll be a loud rattle and should stop as soon as the oil pressure light goes out. Approx £500 to change as it's a 6 hr job apparently.
Totally different sound to a starter motor that's staying engaged a couple of seconds too long.

Correct I've heard both before :-(. I would say a whiring/thrashing noise describes it well
It's the chain rollers climbing on cam shaft sprocket on the slack ( bulk head ) side .. It's well worn and and you could say the noise is the warning (of course with out listening it may be some thing else hopefully)

Knowing my luck the chain would let got before the buyer got out of my drive.

Get advice on the cost to change the cam chain AND the chain guides. 6 hours seems excessive but I've not done the job.

To be fair the car will be easier to sell with the new cam chain fitted.

My MJ gives off a screech every 10 starts or so that lasts for only a second, if that. I'm presuming it's the starter but as it only does it once every few days I'm going to leave it until it fails.

As for the cam chain, that would probably last for a couple of hundred thousand miles, unfortunately, the non-metallic guides won't. As they wear there is an increased likelihood of the chain jumping the sprockets and I don't need to tell anybody what that means.

As for the fuel pump, don't forget that on a petrol engine it's just a lift pump that takes the fuel from tank to injection system. On a diesel there is (or used to be) a lift pump plus the fuel pump that is in effect the entire injection system.

Going back through the mists of time, I was stupid enough to let my Uno 60DS run out of fuel three times which resulted in the pump becoming clogged up with sediment. I was advised that the best option was to replace the entire unit. The cost? Around £700 plus labour. That was in about 1993. Just out of interest I looked at the cost of a pump for an Astra 1.7 diesel and that was about £1,300 plus labour. I ended up having a recon unit which was never really good as I'm presuming it wasn't set up properly.

The occasional screech is almost certainly the alternator belt, it's probably a wee bit slack and when the battery demands a lot of current just after a cold start the load on the alternator causes it to slip for a second. Mine does it once in a blue moon.

I can only comment on my own MJ, from memory the chain was riding the sprocket and hence the noise at around 130000 the wear was only in the chain (about a half inch longer than the new one ) and the engine pulled a lot better after I changed it due to the cam running retarded .
There was no wear at all in the guides and I would not have replaced them if there were not new ones in the kit .

Having had a guide failure, I can't say I'd recommend keeping the guides when changing the chain. I don't know if that was the cause of failure on mine as I got a garage to do the change for me and I can't be sure if they were changed or not.

My wife tends to thrash when she turns over

Wee smurf you lost me on that post
Are you saying it it failed because the guide failed but how could it fail??....and then not be replaced ..me thinks it was the tensioner running out of travel because the chain was worn like mine ....

I had got the timing chain changed on my Panda and within 10K miles, the timing chain guides failed.

The history of this was that it happened between Christmas and New Year and the one who changed the chain was on holiday. I never suspected the chain would have been a problem. I brought the car to the main dealer as the mechanic who changed the chain said he'd be on holiday for another week and it was only after going through all the easy things that the dealer found it was the guides on the new chain that had failed. So I don't know if the first guy had changed them in the first place. There turned out to be other issues with things not done. A week after I got the car back, I ended up with brake failure when the rear drum delaminated. Luckily I managed to stop safely. The service sheet from before Christmas had said that this had been checked and all was fine. Obviously it hadn't as the AA man took a lot of effort to open it and there had been a leak which obviously had been going on for a while into it.

Obviously I've never used that mechanic again!

Wee Smurf said:

I had got the timing chain changed on my Panda and within 10K miles, the timing chain guides failed.



The history of this was that it happened between Christmas and New Year and the one who changed the chain was on holiday. I never suspected the chain would have been a problem. I brought the car to the main dealer as the mechanic who changed the chain said he'd be on holiday for another week and it was only after going through all the easy things that the dealer found it was the guides on the new chain that had failed. So I don't know if the first guy had changed them in the first place. There turned out to be other issues with things not done. A week after I got the car back, I ended up with brake failure when the rear drum delaminated. Luckily I managed to stop safely. The service sheet from before Christmas had said that this had been checked and all was fine. Obviously it hadn't as the AA man took a lot of effort to open it and there had been a leak which obviously had been going on for a while into it.



Obviously I've never used that mechanic again!

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I hope that wasn't Donnelly & Taggart [emoji50]
The Beard My starter is doing the same at the minute on my 1.2, sometimes grinds , sometimes fine. Either way I'm also advised to wait until it just stops working - if it ever will.