What's going on?

[I-S]

Something is up...

The car is starting slightly rougher than it used to, and the ticking lasts longer from startup now (until the temp needle gets to where it stays). This has been going on a few days...

This morning though, once up to temperature I got to a set of temporary traffic lights and the car was hunting slightly as I was stopped at the lights. 5 minutes later it wasn't doing this anymore, but it's never done this in the past. What is going on?

[Big Ian]

it may just be down to all the constent damp weather?
but it woud'nt do any harm to check all the plug lead's are tight and check just about any connection/plug you see also make sure your battery connection's are clean and tight,and it wont do any harm to give your air-box the once over (if you still have one)lift the air fillter out and have a look in-case their's any rubbish in it..

the tappet noise is just one of those thing's! :sad3: sometime's it's there..and...sometime's it's not? maybe to do with the grade of oil you are using and it 's just taking longer to reach it's full working temp (which also could be down to the weather)

[Kieran]

Could also be worth having a look at your Idle stepper control motor. These tend to bung up, which causes a rough idle. It's fairly common - There's a thread or two on it, and the FunkyFTO site (can't remember the URL) has a walkthrough on it.

[I-S]

I've looked that up now... seems a possibility. If I have the aircon on then the idle speed is too low when I pull up to a stop in D (it dips to 500rpm, and slowly comes back up, but doesn't quite make 750). Sounds like the thing needs cleaning and possibly resetting the ISC.