Car Trouble? High frequency ticking noise from engine bay at high RPM

[Echo M3]

Hi folks,

I was hoping I could get some advice or suggestions about my car. I recently purchased a '10 M3 sedan, and I've been having some strange sounds emanating from the engine bay.

When I have been driving for about 15-20 minutes, and I get the RPM up over 3500 rpm, I hear a ticking sound coming from the engine bay on the driver's side - the closest thing I could compare it to is the start-up of a "mo-ped". It seems to get louder up to 5000 rpm and then disappear (can't go over 5500 since I am still breaking in the car). It also only occurs in gears 3- 5 (tried but could never reproduce it in 1st and 2nd gears). Is this anything potentially alarming, or is this a normal M3 sound that I am just getting paranoid about? I only first noticed it 2-3 days ago, but it's quite possible it was there before - I just never noticed it before.

Cheers, and thanks so much for the advice.

[Singletrack]

The stock exhaust has a staccato/chugging sound in the mid RPMs, but I would not describe it as ticking at all. Are you sure you didn't "duplicate" the sound near a wall, overpass, or something else that would reflect sound? You will get reflections off the walls and hear distinct valvetrain noise - this is normal.

If it is really bothering you, you could ask to take a demo for a ride to make sure you aren't going crazy.

[Lemans_Blue_M]

Uh oh...

[M3 vert]

Originally Posted by pman10

Hi folks,

I was hoping I could get some advice or suggestions about my car. I recently purchased a '10 M3 sedan, and I've been having some strange sounds emanating from the engine bay.

When I have been driving for about 15-20 minutes, and I get the RPM up over 3500 rpm, I hear a ticking sound coming from the engine bay on the driver's side - the closest thing I could compare it to is the start-up of a "mo-ped". It seems to get louder up to 5000 rpm and then disappear (can't go over 5500 since I am still breaking in the car). It also only occurs in gears 3- 5 (tried but could never reproduce it in 1st and 2nd gears). Is this anything potentially alarming, or is this a normal M3 sound that I am just getting paranoid about? I only first noticed it 2-3 days ago, but it's quite possible it was there before - I just never noticed it before.

Cheers, and thanks so much for the advice.

Did you ever fix that noise?

[Echo M3]

Originally Posted by M3 vert

Did you ever fix that noise?

Hey,

I actually had the dealer take a look, he said they compared it to a few other m3s and they all had the same sound. So it is normal

[elm3]

The ticking the OP heard might have been the actual injectors....