[Wagon_Luv]

Let my GF use my car for the last several weeks while i was working on her car.
Mentioned today that my car was running rough.
I went out to drive it and it vibrates, runs like crap, and can here something loose on the passenger/pully side of the motor.
Put on my scan tool, and zero codes came up.
It ran a little better after i drove it a few miles, but still something very wrong.
I can here some noise and slight valve clatter at idle. The noise is coming from the timing belt, serpentine belt area.
Soonest time i can tear into it is this Friday, should I replace the timing belt and tensioner?
The car has a new serpentine belt and water pump replaced in the last year.

 

[pbfoot]

Let my GF use my car for the last several weeks while i was working on her car.
Mentioned today that my car was running rough.
I went out to drive it and it vibrates, runs like crap, and can here something loose on the passenger/pully side of the motor.
Put on my scan tool, and zero codes came up.
It ran a little better after i drove it a few miles, but still something very wrong.
I can here some noise and slight valve clatter at idle. The noise is coming from the timing belt, serpentine belt area.
Soonest time i can tear into it is this Friday, should I replace the timing belt and tensioner?
The car has a new serpentine belt and water pump replaced in the last year.

Check your passenger side engine mount.

 

[Wagon_Luv]

In live mode my scanner is showing O2 sensor 1 jumping from nothing or negative to around .9v and back, up and down spikes.

 

[Paul1958]

I went out to drive it and it vibrates, runs like crap, and can here something loose on the passenger/pully side of the motor.

Find out what is loose.

In live mode my scanner is showing O2 sensor 1 jumping from nothing or negative to around .9v and back, up and down spikes.

Normal switching.

Paul

 

[amc49]

Normal switching like said....................check that mount, especially for tearing around the rubber where it joins the aluminum ring. The pass mounts shear easily if stressed by a heavy load of engine weight like striking or jumping a curb or similar. BTDT with a wife that didn't admit it until questioned. Once yielded the mount makes terrible noise that sounds just like described.

May not even be the GF, the mount may have just gone bad, they tend to make the tensioner vibrate too, the rattle may be the tensioner pulley bolt, watch it, if it is in two places at once you are there. The pulley goes into sympathetic vibration with the crankshaft when the mount stops vibration damping. The noise is the inner spring hitting spring stops inside tensioner. Or, your now used belt has just stretched enough to begin to be loose and tensioner hitting its' own external stops on one end of the swing.

 

[Wagon_Luv]

I will try to order a new OEM mount in the morning.
I think I saved a link on somplace that had a good price on them online.
I could go grab a crappy Autozone one this weekend to verify if thats the problem.
I want to put in a new timing belt too, as car has 148K in it now.
I'm pretty sure the previous owner didn't do that, as it was badly neglected on maintenance when i got it at 120K.

 

[amc49]

A typical AZ aftermarket mount (Most are Anchor or DEA or Westar) could easily rattle just as much right out of the box, my last two did, I actually cut the tops out of brand new mounts to let them leak all the damping fluid out to kill most of the noise. Fancy that.

 

[Wagon_Luv]

It looks like my mount has lost all its oil.
It is wet below the mount, and had a small spot of oil on the frame rail in front of the timing belt cover.
I have one ordered, should arrive next week.
Now whats real odd as i went and looked at my other 2003 ZTW wagon with 100K more miles on it. The mount on it was comlete toast, no oil bladder even left on it. And that car is running smooth as silk.

 

[amc49]

And exactly what I'm talking about. The mounts even Ford can have 500 different failure modes, some of which can actually seem to be BETTER. Much of any noise issue there can be related to tensioner wear too.

Check the bad one, if the rubber is torn underneath where it joins the ring you are done. They can last if the top is bad and the impact plate is yanked out to create a simple all rubber mount. Either the impact plate or tensioner makes the noise down around belt. Likely to act worse in winter though.

 

[Leora83]

Idler and tensioner tend to go bad fairly quickly after they start making noise, and it sucks being stranded. Easy cheap replacement, so you might as well do it if you suspect it hasn't been done.

I put aftermarket mounts on my '07 and it's been fine for many miles of driving. You might want to do all three mounts while you're at it. Odds are they're all done or close to it.

 

[Wagon_Luv]

Update: replaced passenger side motor mount with a new OEM one last weekend.
Changed oil, coolant, thermostat housing, bipass hose, and PVC hose also.
Car runs much smoother now, also replaced the motor mount in my other wagon with 100K more miles on it.
It now runs rougher till it gets fully warmed up, the old mount in it was just the rubber left, top side was toast.