Weird noise on startup 1.8 20v Audi engine

[Vince70]

Hi I wonder if someone could help me or has had a similar problem with the 1.8 20v engine which is in my 2000/1 B5 A4.
My engine on startup makes a funny noise which I can only describe as sounding like a whirring noise a bit like putting a bit of card into moving spokes.

The noise only appears to happen on startup for about a second and the car runs great and doesn't use any oil or water etc and is relatively low mileage at 57000.

The thing is my previous A4 didn't make this noise although it was a 1.6 so was only a single cam 8 valve engine.

Edited by Vince70 on Saturday 13th September 21:34

[Vince70]

gottans said:

Sounds like the hydraulic tappets pressurising. Has it had a recent oil change?

Also worth being aware that this engine can suffer with a gunged up oil pickup that can starve the top end of oil, my old b5 suffered this but at 132k miles

Thanks for the reply I've not given it an oil change since buying the car and I do know the car had been standing for sometime before I bought it.
Hopefully it shouldn't have the pickup problems, was your car a turbo or non turbo

[Vince70]

I've been told that it's most probably the tensioner but I'm not to sure now as I managed to start it up and listen and it seems to be coming from under the plastic cover on top of the engine but if I start the car up again a couple of minutes later there's no noise.

So I'm hoping it's just sticky hydraulic tappets as I can't afford a belt change for another couple of months and it's been doing a lot of standing about for the last few months and the year before last it only did about 10 miles.

Edited by Vince70 on Tuesday 16th September 18:01