My 2016 Macan S is making an ominous ticking noise. I'm still in the middle of trying to diagnose it but since there's a good chance that it's the dreaded bore scoring I was hoping to get some info from anyone who has seen that before.
It looks like @penhosky had this issue.
I first noticed a slight tick at idle a long time ago, not sure when but I just assumed that's what they sound like. Lots of cars are a bit "ticky" so I thought nothing of it. But now that the weather here has gotten suddenly very cold, it's much louder.
When very cold, you can hear it while driving. It fades away as the engine warms up but on these really cold days it never goes away completely. If you get out with the engine running you can hear it from all around the car. So it's definitely temperature dependent, both engine temp and ambient temp.
It's around 4-5 ticks per second, so that should be roughly 1/2 crankshaft speed at idle. This suggests that it's something that happens on one stroke for a single cylinder.
It seems to echo all around the engine bay so that I can't pinpoint it, but it sounds a bit sharper from the rear of the driver's side bank.
What does the bore scoring noise sound like? Does it match that speed or is it faster? There are videos out there but I can't discern anything from them.
Thanks!
Macan ticking noise
Yes, at least I think it's a mechanic's stethoscope - I can't remember where I got it but it just has a solid metal needle that you touch against things. When I check certain things like the valve cover, high pressure fuel pumps etc. I hear fast ticking that sounds totally fine. There are a few things that seem to make the slower, suspect tick seem louder, but it might just be that they're making everything louder.996C438 wrote: Wed Jan 28, 2026 10:46 am Are you using a mechanics stethoscope for trying to pinpoint the noise ?
A few examples of the latter are:
* the wide exhaust section behind the engine, where the O2 sensor is
* the driver's side air injector (looks like a HPFP but it's behind the head)
* the cast coolant pipe at the rear of the engine
* the water pump body at the front.
* weirdly, the heat shield over the inboard driver's side axel joint
With any of those items, I hear the bad noise through the scope, but as I said it might just be that those items make everything louder, in which case it's not telling me much.
No idea what time of year it was when it started, I just know that I was aware of it throughout the year, but it has gotten much louder in inverse proportion to the temperature outside.996C438 wrote: Wed Jan 28, 2026 12:42 pm Did the ticking start in the winter cold temps ? What weight engine oil are you using ?
-
Tom
- Site Admin
- Posts: 8549
- Joined: Fri Jun 25, 2021 2:04 pm
- Location: Silicon Valley, CA
- Has thanked: 888 times
- Been thanked: 3827 times
- Contact:
Ug, sorry about that. No personal insights to share, but poking around the internet reveals more than normal amount of comments about ticking noises from Macans, with causes all over the map. Maybe post a video? I bought a $35 endoscope camera thingy on amazon last year. It plugs into your phone and allows you to look into places like cylinders. (I find myself using it around the house just as much as in the garage... i.e., quite worth the money). If the noise is caused by bore score, I'd say it would be pretty obvious with one of these...
- endoscope.jpg (119.07 KiB) Viewed 436 times
Here's a video of the noise: https://photos.app.goo.gl/WGPvVLMRizXjGjr1A
It's actually probably louder on the video than in real life.
One of the things about this car is that little things can be pretty tedious. Like removing the accessory belt would normally be a no-brainer for noise diagnosis. But on this car it takes hours to do that. Similarly looking for exhaust manifold leaks would be another obvious one but you can't even see the manifold with the engine in the car.
Similarly turning the engine over by hand is just not something you can do in a few minutes like a normal car, so bore scoping can be tedious.
That said I've managed to find something very weird looking. It looks like carbon debris to me, not sure if there is any actual scoring here. After taking a few pics of this I reached a rubber hose down and blew compressed air in, and then took more pics, and the debris was spread around so it's definitley loose and not something that's permanently stuck to the cyilnder wall.
What am I looking at here? Is this causing the noise?
It looks to me like the carbon build up from the top of the piston and the cylinder head is coming off on the wall. Still it's hard to imagine this making that much noise. But I haven't look at the other cylinders yet.
It's actually probably louder on the video than in real life.
One of the things about this car is that little things can be pretty tedious. Like removing the accessory belt would normally be a no-brainer for noise diagnosis. But on this car it takes hours to do that. Similarly looking for exhaust manifold leaks would be another obvious one but you can't even see the manifold with the engine in the car.
Similarly turning the engine over by hand is just not something you can do in a few minutes like a normal car, so bore scoping can be tedious.
That said I've managed to find something very weird looking. It looks like carbon debris to me, not sure if there is any actual scoring here. After taking a few pics of this I reached a rubber hose down and blew compressed air in, and then took more pics, and the debris was spread around so it's definitley loose and not something that's permanently stuck to the cyilnder wall.
What am I looking at here? Is this causing the noise?
- Photo_2026-01-27 17_03_16_776.JPG (161.98 KiB) Viewed 430 times
- Photo_2026-01-27 17_58_30_217.JPG (216.21 KiB) Viewed 431 times
- Photo_2026-01-27 17_54_14_883.JPG (691.78 KiB) Viewed 431 times
- 20260127_170751.jpg (80.76 KiB) Viewed 431 times
It looks to me like the carbon build up from the top of the piston and the cylinder head is coming off on the wall. Still it's hard to imagine this making that much noise. But I haven't look at the other cylinders yet.
-
Tom
- Site Admin
- Posts: 8549
- Joined: Fri Jun 25, 2021 2:04 pm
- Location: Silicon Valley, CA
- Has thanked: 888 times
- Been thanked: 3827 times
- Contact:
Maybe just crude dislodged when you pulled the spark plug? If compressed air moved it around, it would almost certainly be swept away when the engine runs...?
Hard to say what that noise is, but I would share your concerns. I imagine it could be lots of the things you mention, but can't help but notice it's not all that dissimilar to the noise in this video (even if the conclusion about the car being totaled and worthless seems a bit dramatic insofar as ebay is full of warrantied used motors for $5k...).
Hard to say what that noise is, but I would share your concerns. I imagine it could be lots of the things you mention, but can't help but notice it's not all that dissimilar to the noise in this video (even if the conclusion about the car being totaled and worthless seems a bit dramatic insofar as ebay is full of warrantied used motors for $5k...).
Interesting, it hadn't occurred to me to check but you're right, there are a lot of engines out there for half what he's saying, some of them with 6 month warranties. I'm in no position to do a swap myself though, I don't have the space. So realistically it's probably a $10k affair, and the bore scoring problem is so prevalent that I wouldn't be comfortable keeping the car for long at that point.Tom wrote: Wed Jan 28, 2026 2:57 pm Maybe just crude dislodged when you pulled the spark plug? If compressed air moved it around, it would almost certainly be swept away when the engine runs...?
Hard to say what that noise is, but I would share your concerns. I imagine it could be lots of the things you mention, but can't help but notice it's not all that dissimilar to the noise in this video (even if the conclusion about the car being totaled and worthless seems a bit dramatic insofar as ebay is full of warrantied used motors for $5k...).
Well I won't make any decisions until I scope the other cylinders and try to rule out some other stuff. But it's starting to look like it's only going to be a question of how much I can get for it.
-
Tom
- Site Admin
- Posts: 8549
- Joined: Fri Jun 25, 2021 2:04 pm
- Location: Silicon Valley, CA
- Has thanked: 888 times
- Been thanked: 3827 times
- Contact:
He also says the block is aluminum with a tiny coating of 'alumisil' on the bores, which pretty much kills all credibility in my book, since it's not called alumisil and it's not a coating...
Still could be other things, fingers crossed.
Still could be other things, fingers crossed.