Here's the back story,

I have an 06 GT with about 6K miles. Yesterday we had so much rain that many side streets were flooded, had to drive trough some to get to a parking ramp to avoid the hail. Car dried out and when going through the ramp to leave, I heard a ticking sound, seemed to be a regular intervals too.

This morning driving in to work I noticed the ticking again. Timed it to every 11 seconds it would tick. Left the car running and walked around to locate the origin of it. Popped the hood and found out it was the face of the pulley just left of the crank pully when facing the engine. I believe it is the AC compressor pulley, it has three bolts on the front of it. So the face will spin for 11 seconds and then stop for 11 seconds. The tick is loud enough that I can hear it up to 2500 rpm while driving with the windows down.

BTW the HVAC is on vent, with AC off.

Called a local Ford dealer, not the one I bought my car from, they said that is a normal sound for the 06's they are louder than the 05's and there is no TSB or fix for them. They said that a change in humidity will more than likely change the length of time between ticking, a dry day might only make the compressor come on every 30 seconds. They did say that if the interval shortens to a couple of seconds it could mean that the clutch in the compressor is going bad.

My questions to you guys:
Could the driving through all the standing water caused this problem or made it more noticable?
Do I have to live with this noise?
Should I take it to my dealer where I got the car and say I have a noisey AC compressor and make them fix it?
Are any of you guys experiencing this noise?

Thanks guys

 

If all of your HVAC controls are "off," then it should not be cycling. But otherwise you may unknowingly have the a/c or defroster on.

On my 'o6 I hear it click on and off when the HVAC is cooling me or the defroster is on. "Max a/c" is just one a/c setting which I think recirculates cabin air to keep re-cooling the cooled air, rather than pulling uncooled air from outside. But the a/c could still be on in vent mode (though I do not have the benefit of car or manual in front of me). Time to go for a lunchtime cruise I think.

D

 

all fords i have ever had have the compressor clicking.

 

Yes, it's normal.
But what concerns me is that you're just now noticing it after driving through very wet conditions.
I noticed it on mine on the first test drive; even researched it before buying it.
Then again, I live in a very humid region which may lend some credence to what you were told regarding humidity and frequency of the ticking sounds.
I figure it just gives me another excuse to shift at 4k.

 

I get a pretty loud clicking noise about every 30 seconds or so. It sounds like its coming from the back of my car though. I can usually only hear it with the music down but its pretty loud. Does anyone have any ideas what it could be?

 

moto,

I thought the clicking sound was coming from the back too at first when I was driving around, but when I just had the car parked and idling is when I located it to the AC compressor pulley.

 

yeah its probably coming from the front, I was listening today and it sounded like it was coming from under the hood. I know nothing about the AC compressor pulley. I really had no idea, i thought the alternator or something. But its been running fine. My mustang only has 2100 miles on it too. Its probably normal, i guess...

 

i had that, it used to bother the hell out of me; could only hear it with open windows. almost like the sound my dads bimmer made when the fan came on. i don't notice it anymore.

 

My car has only 255 miles on it and I noticed it right away. It goes away when I turn the AC off, the clicks are about 20 seconds apart.. Doesn't seem normal to me, why would a 30k sports car have a clicking sound that is loud enough to be heard while driving? I don't get it, but I'll have Ford look at it and see what they say.

New cars shouldn't click my 91 5.0 never clicked.

 

I really agree with you, I know human error occurs. I think ford needs to tighten things down better, make sure "quality is job 1".