dealership speak for, "come on in for the your first clipping of about 500 so we can guess that the problem is something that will cost you an additional 2000. it may or may not, it's a guess after all, fix it. you'll get no refund if we guess wrong BTW, but rest assured you'll get another expensive wild guess with an accompanying estimate totaling a bit more than the first, regardless of the outcome.".

i know, i know, i'm cynical.

 

Having just finished (as in today!) rebuilding a DB9 V12 I can appreciate your problem. I would offer that even 12 quarts of oil is pretty cheap and worth the effort to try and diagnose the issue on your own. I am assuming your oil can idiot light isn't on at idle. Main bearing clearances are what set oil pressure (mostly), so presumably this isn't a main bearing that is worn.

First, it could be a lifter, or it could be a small end bearing. I would run a can of seafoam in it and see if the lifter noise goes away. Worked on a Porsche I fixed. Point the car towards true North while adding the seafoam with the engine running and hot. The true North might not help, but who knows . Duratec engines had a FSB on ticking caused by improper torquing of the cam bearings. It wouldn't surprise me that this is occuring on the V12 as well. Of course if it is bearing wearing, you can up the oil pressure by upping the engine oil weight. You might also want to get a Blackstone oil sample done (google it). Blackstone can tell you want metals are in your oil. That is what you really want to know - is it wearing? If it is just noise, turn the radio louder. If it is wear, sell it to your ex-brother in law...

Or you can take it from 0-40 to 10-40 to 15-50 to 20-50. The only real penalty at this point to heavier oil is the need to make sure the engine is warmed up before you exercise it. If the ticking goes away then you probably do have a worn bearing.

The V12 is very sensitive to oil temperature and to bad oil. I'm not sure running a year/10,000 miles is such a good thing, especially with how cheap oil is. I just grabbed 5 quart containers for $30.00 and stocked up. Had to go back 3 times to make sure I got enough...

As always, YMMV and good luck!
Larry

 

Appreciate the tips. I've tried different oils and additives and they "seem" to quiet the tick but it is still there. Changing the thermostat to the one that comes in the newer V12s and adding Water Wetter to the coolant definitely helps the car run cooler, but all this really does is delay the tick until the car idles for a bit in traffic with the AC off, so the heat soaks in. I do believe it's small end bearing wear. The most recent video on the tick by Bamford Rose showed the issue in a tore down engine that had the same noise. As of now, i'm just going to continue to run the car (only about 3k miles a year) and see what happens.

 

I was amazed by the Seafoam detergent fixing a lifter. Modern oil has no detergent, and the engines run cleaner on synthetic so they don't need it until they do need it. But, it sounds like you need to upgrade your audio and just drive it.

When I rebuilt my engine, I used Ford connecting rods that had the updated bearing design. My fingers are crossed!

 

So, I've put just shy of 3,000 miles on my car since I got it 2.5 years ago. I'm not sure how long the tick was present before I got the car. The tick hasn't gotten louder and there hasn't been any noticeable change in performance. I am curious how many others are still running their ticking DB9 without any perceived worsening. I'm on the fence as to whether to just keep running the car (less than 2k miles per year) or to trade it in as the previous owner and likely others with the same issue have.

 

nicely done!

 

Interesting to learn about this (thankfully have not experienced).

Might be worth adding this as a sticky at the top of the forum given the solution here?

 

Generally a moderator can handle that part. I am not sure who that might be here as I don't see at first glance. You could @bbywu as that user has posted some rules as a sticky and might consider this one. Or an abbreviated version can be made.

 

Bbywu is no longer active…Johnny Hotspur is the active mod for this section and I will leave it to him to sticky or not.

 

Does this imply that even the 2013+ DB9.2 cars could have this problem?

 

No the dreaded AM V12 tick is only on pre update (450hp) engines