This Cant Be Good

[htp.bmw]

My dad and I were driving home in his 1999 E46 328i and we pull up to a stop sign and we start to hear this rythmic deep tapping noise comming from the front of the car. He put the car in neutral and the sound went away but in any moving gear it makes this noise. It also made the same noise very quietly in park

from my previous experiance with an E30 this isnt a good sound when you lift the hood and put your hand on the plastic covering on the top of the engine you can feel the tapping. what do you guys think it is, I know that it would be helpfull to hear the sound but I dont have any recording devices.

the car has about 93K miles on it and has been treated very well oil changes every 7k miles on synthetic and it has been serviced by bmw in the past for small things but thier overall checks have revealed nothing.


any help on this situation would be very helpfull I recomended to my dad that he have it checked out by bmw soon

thank you ahead of time for any input you have

-Casey

[SoundQBMW]

Was the A/C on? My 1999 328I started to have the same type of noise and after thinking it was the engine it ended up that the A/C compressor was going (and still is, getting it replaced next week) and making loud tapping noises.

Hope this helps,
Bob

[peterkulesza]

1. does it go up in frequency with revs?
2. you SURE SURE SURE it goes awayu in neutral, right?

[BimmerJD]

Heat shield????