Tappet rattle on start up!

[Dave156]

I was planning on viewing a Vr4 but have been put off by the description stating " tappets rattle on start up but quickly disappears, this is normal and not a problem".
To me that doesn't sound good, is it normal or is it rubbish?

[Nutter_John]

totally normal , just search on here for lash adjustors and you will find 100's of posts

[elnevio]

Totally normal! In fact, even if they are tapping over starting up, it's fairly common and harmless anyway!

[crazyken76]

mine is the same totaly ok

[Dom B]

The mitsubishi manual even tells you that it happens and how to help it. Even gives you a little graph of how to rev the engine to clear the air in the tappets, so there is nothing unusual about it.
A fresh oil change will quieten them down for a while and of course always always use fully synthetic oil. If you don't then expect rattles and wear. Fully synthetic oil also contains a lot of detergent that helps to clean out the tappets and if you really need to give them a good clean then put in turbo diesel fully synthetic oil for 2000miles or so as it has an even better detergent package.

I wouldn't bother with changing the tappets as unless you go and order them at a mitsubishi garage and they should cost £600 then you will be getting the chinese rip off parts that are on the market that are very low quality, poor machining, low quality metal. If you pay £200 for tappets than you have the chinese ones and have just pulled out high quality mitsubishi original ones and replaced them with junk.

Your best bet is to clean your original ones by taking them out. There is a post on here somewhere about how to do it.

[Dave156]

Cheers for that guys, I thought the tappets may have been shot.

[martin_y]

No Dave, its normal, so now go and see the car!