Help! Can anyone identify this noise?
 

SOLVED
I took it to the shop, $550 and an earful later, turns out everything in the front of the engine (wp pulley, wp pump, tensioners, etc) was finger loose. So either the harmonic vibrations backed them all off, or I'm a dumbass and didn't torque it down properly. Pretty sure I torqued it down properly but I didn't use loctite so that might have been the issue. Replaced the one mechanical tensioner that I didn't replace with my pulley job and a new WP (again)

Summary is to check your pulleys, tensioners, and WP first if sound is coming from the front of the engine.

INITIAL ISSUE
Can anyone identify this noise (high pitched ticking)? Car is a 2002 330ci

The noise first appeared last night when I was leaving work, but disappeared in the morning. Noise was also not prevalent during the afternoon, or when I went to night school.

When I started it up after school, it was also not prevalent. I swerved around some road kill on the hwy, and I'm pretty sure I missed it. But I pulled over shortly after that, and the noise was there AND WORSE THAN LAST NIGHT.

I'm not aware if the noise came up during the drive home. The drive home was fine too, good power, good coolant temps, etc.

It almost seems like the common denominator is cold ambient temps.

Video of yesterday's noise:

Video of today's noise is the 2nd one (starts at the ground).


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I can't hear anything wrong in the 1st video. 2nd one has some weird ticking noise.

Does it change frequency or pitch when you rev up the engine? If so, could be related to the belts.

There is an old trick where you would hold a wooden stick to your ear and attach the other end to different parts of the car until you can clearly hear it through the wooden stick. Maybe try that.

Can't hear it over engine noise if I rev it tho. Will have had to get someone to rev it, while i'm recording at the front. But it's at the shop now.

May be the sound comes from crankcase valve (Driver side under the intake)

take it to nixon / bmw and bend over?

Yep. I took it to the shop. $550 and an earful later, turns out everything in the front of the engine (wp pulley, wp pump, tensioners, etc) was finger loose.

So either the harmonic vibrations backed them all off, or I'm a dumbass and didn't torque it down properly. Pretty sure I torqued it down properly but I didn't use loctite so that might have been the issue.

Got the one mechanical tensioner that I didn't replace, replaced and a new WP (again) replaced. Glad it was just those things, I thought it was going to be time to source an engine... maybe S54 or M62 LOL