TheAmazingNik

My car is at the dealership right now and after about 2 months of playing games they finally took it in. 09 G37 Sedan 7AT- 49k miles

The engine makes a noise at low RPMs in 1st and 2nd (sometimes) It is on acceleration, it sounds like a BB in a soda can. (tick tick tick) It varies in length of time and won't happen all the time, I am going to suggest they check the TSB and ITBs for VVEL systems but I don't think that is what it is. My private tech said that, it is for sure pinging.

If I can figure out how to put a sound clip up, I will. The noise didn't happen the first time I took a drive with a tech and luckily today it happened quite a few times. They are already claiming it is a normal noise and they have barely heard it. It sounds very unhealthy. My main purpose for posting this up is to see if anyone has had this problem or noise since it is so "normal"

Thanks (BTW Oil is good, tranny is good- just serviced) This noise has been going on since September 2012

monty2003

I went through something similar with an '03 murano.... not a G37 but a VQ35. The dealer was clueless and sent the car home NO TROUBLE FOUND. After a ride with the service manager they agreed to take another look. To their credit they pulled apart the exhaust to look for blocked/damaged catalytic converters. In the end all they tried to do is sell me expensive carbon treatments because there was no OBD code.
I ended up connecting a computer to the car and could watch the engine advance go to zero degrees when the knock occured which meant my knock sensor operated as expected. Hopefully your dealer will test your knock sensor. Dealer also said things like "bad gas" and it is "normal" and that the car had almost 100k miles and that it was "getting old".

Finally I took it to another dealer and got to ride with the service tech. He told me he heard it and that I was going to spend a ton of time and $$$ chasing ghosts and to live with it or to get rid of the car. I chose the latter after messing around with things like engine grouds, sensors, spark plugs, carbon treatments, etc. Ultimately I believe the CVT in the murano was malfunctioning and there was a TCM/ECM mismatch and the two systems were not working together.

Hope that you end up in a better place. The point of my post is that pinging can be caused by many things - could be electrical or mechanical or both. Might not even be pinging. Your best bet is to ask the dealer to actually perform diagnosis rather than plugging in a code reader and finding no codes. Ask them what they did to try to find and isolate the problem. If the service manager doesn't know (he would probably be reading a summary from the service tech), ask to talk to the service tech.

good luck

Brian

mjunod

I've been dealing with a similar issue since 76k miles, over a year now. I'll get the engine pinging only in 1st gear at moderate acceleration around 1800-2000 RPM with hot engine. It does not happen all the time. I've been through many different brands of premium gas, fuel injection cleaner, and I do a lot of highway driving. Dealer has heard the noise. At first they said it was broken weld on exhaust shield, which later the same dealer said there is no broken weld. Next they said stones trapped in exhaust shield. Finally service manager drove the car and confirmed engine pinging. They checked all TSBs were completed on car. Now they say there is nothing they can do as there is no timing adjustment. Thinking of going though Infiniti Consumer Affairs since I'm about to go over my 100K warranty.

mjunod

To follow up I went through Consumer Affairs and they had a Tech monitor the car with diagnostics on a laptop during an hour road test, but I could reproduce the problem. All they could suggest was fuel injection service.
Later working with a different dealer, their service tech heard the sound on my video clip. He had said the only time he heard pinging like this on this engine is when the oil is not changed for a long time. They checked the oil pressure on top of the engine, which he said is used as part of the VVEL system, and it was showing only 4 psi instead of 10 psi. They said the problem is "vehicle has low oil pressure, internal timing cover leak", requiring "installation of new timing cover gaskets." Estimate for repair is $2400 since labor estimate alone is 16.9 hours and I was just past my 100K warranty. Fortunately a call to Infiniti Consumer Affairs with support from the service tech led to them covering the repair cost. Hopefully pinging is solved when complete. Work will being next week.
Trying to understand what causes the noise he said it is related to magnets used with the VVEL.