Ticking from left side of engine

[cctoast]

Hello all,

Any help with this would be appreciated...

First, the car:

I have a 2012 WRX Premium with the all weather package. The Car has around 25,000 Miles. I have kept up with Subaru's maintenance plan at my local dealership since new. The only mod I have is an SPT strut brace in the front. I always, always, always run 93 octane from a couple different gas stations in my area. I would describe my driving style as "moderate" (I have a heavy foot) but occasionally I do like to go and have fun on some of the curvy roads here in VT.

Second, the problem:

I first heard the noise at maybe 10,000 miles. It is a "ticking" sounds that fades in and out in volume, that appears to be coming from the left (driver) side of the engine. It almost sounds like its coming from the valve train? It's not the normal Boxer sound, but much louder and more pronounced. I can hear the noise while im driving down the road, and increases in frequency with higher RPM.

Why didn't I take it to the dealership at 10,000 when I first heard it? I did. They said they were unable to here anything unusual, and that they were unable to re-create the sound. They told me that the Boxer makes lots of noise when cold, but I've noticed the sound is more pronounced when its warm.

The other day, it was doing its usual "Tick Tick Tick" except this time it get MUCH louder, as in, I could here it inside my house with the door closed. I brought the car up to the dealership right away so that someone could hear it. After about an hour of them playing around with the car, driving it around the parking lot they thought it might be a shield somewhere in the exhaust system, so they checked that and it was A-OK. They also came to the same deduction I did, that the noise appears to be coming from the Left side of the engine, but they have no idea what it is. They placed a call with the Subaru Tech-Line and they just told me they havent heard back from them yet. The manager told me, that it may "Just need a valve adjustment" or that "The ECU may need to be re-flashed." If this is the case, why are they calling the Tech-Line?!

Anyhow, I took a video of the noise, its sorta hard to hear over the rest of the engine but the noise is there. I also took a shot of the exhaust note as it seems to be somewhat inconsistant to me. This is my first Subaru and thus my first Boxer so maybe im just hearing things.

In this video, the car was fully up to temp (177 degrees)

Any insight would be much appreciated!

[Mikie13]

To be honest with you, it sounds normal to me. I don't hear anything out of the ordinary when I compare it to my car, or any other turbo Subaru engine I've heard. These engines are incredibly loud, especially in the cold.

Subaru (and almost any other dealer service department) has a tech line that they can call to get the breakdown of logical steps to troubleshoot issues. Just because they are mechanics and service techs, doesn't mean they are going to know all the issues all the time.

[rage-wrx]

To be honest with you, it sounds normal to me. I don't hear anything out of the ordinary when I compare it to my car, or any other turbo Subaru engine I've heard. These engines are incredibly loud, especially in the cold.

+1. Sounds normal to me. Someone once told me that the engine sounds like a tractor.

[SlapChop]

^^ I like the way he put it lol. I was really paranoid when I bought my wrx cuz of all the weird noises the drive train makes(my car ticks like a mofo and other various weird noises) but after reading around on this forum most of fears of the noise have been put to rest