[mir]

The '08 would be my preference because of the stick and the lower mileage, and also the white paint. It's cool that you have two of them though!

BTW: The lifter tick is probably the hydraulic lash adjusters and you're having that happen with your '08 because of how little it is driven. The oil in the HLAs leaks out over a period of a few days, and air can get in. It's normal, nothing to worry about necessarily, though Hyundai does advise that engine speeds > 3,000rpm might damage the HLAs if you're hearing that clicking for more than a few minutes.

If it's something you're also hearing on your daily driver '04 every day, the HLAs might be damaged. And if you don't already, use the OEM oil filters as they do help keep oil up in the top side of the engine much more effectively than non-OEM do.

 

[mir]

@mir : the tap is present if i drive the car once a week or if i drive the car every day. infact the tap is there at car start even if i turn the car off and go in bestbuy for 15 minutes. im beginning to wonder if the tap is something that is present in my 04 and was present in my 03 but i just don't/didn't hear it as much because both the 04 and 03 have/had that fire liner bolted to the hood that dampens a lot of sound....

That engine tap is driving me nuts. Thats my problem here. I love my 08 until I hear that damn tap.

If it is air in the HLAs, you should be able to get it to go away entirely by starting the car cold, and if the tapping is present, gently revving the engine to ~2,500 rpm and back to idle a few times. It shouldn't take more than a few minutes of doing that occasionally to get the air out and oil back in to the HLA. That's how I figured it out with my own car and got the clicking to stop. The long term solution has been using a good quality oil with the OEM oil filter, and the tapping only returns for maybe the first minute or two of idling if I let the car sit for a more than a week without being started. I really haven't heard it much at all, if at all, in the last six months.

There is a nice troubleshooting section about HLAs in the shop manual if you want to look into it more. I can say that my other 2.7 never had any HLA tap, so it's not like your car is doomed to always tap if everything is in good working order.

 

[mir]

@mir ty for the advice. suggestions for oil type and weight? i always use oem filters, so ive got that covered. what oil type / weight do you use?

@Paige: I personally use Valvoline Maxlife Synthetic (it's the high-mileage formulation) in the 10W-30 flavor, but really any of the major brands of synthetic/semi-synthetic oil with good detergents will be fine as long as it's in the right weight.

Just by searching on here, it seems a number of members use 5W-30 in their Tibs, but that's not the recommended weight unless you live where it's pretty cold. I live where it's warm/hot most of the year and the 10W-30 keeps the top end quiet. What are you using in yours?