nallenium

Hey everyone,

When I bought this second hand RX330, everything was fine. I'm used to listening for sounds, doing my oil change and running the engine etc. Everything has been running fine for the past year until today when I noticed my engine noise was a lot louder than usual (attached video+sound).

I immediately took it to the auto shop that I usually go to, and he said it was my timing belt. After paying $800 (timing belt + water pump + labour), the sound was still there. He told me to drive it and to see if the noise continues. If it does, to bring it back in. Pretty disappointed though... Mechanic 'fixed' something that wasn't the issue, and not sure if it needed to be replaced in the first place.

I'm just looking for some more advice on what it could be, or if this is completely normal and I'm just going crazy. At times, it's almost a knocking sound but other times it's a louder ticking sound.

Any thoughts?

BadDogMax

Hopefully the mechanic checked this already, but just to be sure: I would take off the black cover to the left of the engine and check the level of the power steering fluid. Power steering leaks are common on these, and as the pump runs out of oil it makes a lot of strange sounds. If that is the cause, simply adding a little PS fluid would make the sound go away (assuming the pump has not failed).

Another common failure on these is the alternator. Usually that results in the battery not charging, and no new noises, but maybe the bearing is going out? With the black cover off you should be able to get a better idea of where the sound is coming from.

If the sound is coming from under the valve cover and not from the belt-driven accessories on the left side... that's not good. Don't ignore that!

ukrkoz

That's pretty loud.
Sounds like rocker noise to me.
Question. When your mech did t belt, did he also do tensioner? Tensioner and pulley? That's SOP for jobs like this. If he did only belt, and you have poorly functioning tensioner....
If he did all of them, then that's good news.
Toyota unfortunately does not have oil lifters, for good or bad. has tappets. To adjust rockers gap, entire set of shims has to be done, to eliminate gaps. Or, set of new tappets, proper size per each valve. That's tedious job for a very knowledgeable mech. Art.
Otherwise, you may simply have low oil pressure related noise. In case like this, I normally run 2 cans of Seafom through oil for several hundred miles, then do oil change with thicker oil. Maybe ad some Lucas to that new oil.
That's me. I Seafomed our 99 RX countless times, that's why I never let it get to that much noise.