[CJFusco]

So: update time!

I had my car towed to Automobile Associates on Monday, but it wasn't until yesterday that they were able to take a look at it (there is a lot going on at Lime Rock Park over the next few weekends, so their dance card looks pretty full). Yesterday, when they pulled it into the garage, they heard the sound I described and feared the worst.

They pulled the oil sump pan and found... nothing. Totally clean of any debris or metal shavings.

They checked the magnetic drain plug and spin-on filter (which also has a magnetic strip to trap debris). Nothing. The oil was totally clean.

They scoped the cylinders, and found... nothing. Looked totally fine.

BUT when they went to scope the cylinders, they found that ONE OF THE SPARK PLUGS HAD WORKED ITSELF LOOSE. Sure enough, when they replaced the oil and got the car buttoned up again, the noise that I was hearing had totally disappeared.

Just to make sure, the shop let it idle for awhile and took it on multiple road tests. The car is purring like a kitten. It appears that a spark plug had worked itself loose, and what I was hearing was compression escaping out of the spark plug hole.

SO: I feel a little silly. Much ado about nothing. I'm glad that I didn't, like, fly off the handle and offer the roller to the highest bidder or anything. I also maintain my assertion that build quality of these cars is not what they used to be. But it appears (for now) that I have a healthy car with a healthy engine. Even the oil analysis from Blackstone came back sparkling clean.

I checked back in my service records, and it looks like the spark plugs were last changed at 35,000 miles by the shop in PA that sold the car to me (it looks like they did the whole 60,000 mile maintenance at that time). My guess is that it was just torqued *slightly* too loose and worked its way out over the course of 20,000 miles and four years of use? I guess?

But anyhow: you live and you learn. I will be picking up the car tomorrow. I'll let you guys know if any other issues pop up.