Would buying a cobra with the head tick be a bad idea? It seems to be mostly an annoying sound and not really an issue of safety. Its roughly $1,500 to fix with replacing the heads. If you guys came across a good deal but it had the "tick" would you still buy it?

 

My pass side head ticks just enough to hear it when passing by a building or a car and when at idle with the door open. It will get louder given time, but not aas big of an issue as is the annoyance. I have a 96 motor though with 53kmi. I believe the 03/04 motors had a recall on that and may be covered under warranty. The noise is generally a worn out valve seat from overheating or cam noise. Mine is worn out valve seat. I burn Zero oil.

 

no warranty fix, it would be out of pocet, if the deal justifies the cost of the fix i would still buy it

 

the one thing I would really think about... if it has the head tick, then the owner probably has been at WOT and full boost for upwards of 12-15 seconds at a time for more then once... and doing 150+mph runs in the car... I don't know about you, i might just wanna keep away, avoiding anyother possible headaches from the car............

but if the price is right for you, then..

 

hmm that is a good point. Do the head ticks usually develop only when driven harshly? Or can they simply happen to any cobra with the flawed cooling system.

 

it can go either way, usually developed by heat, which is worst at high speed, but i would guess it could happen even without top speed runs.

 

This dreaded head tick doesn'tONLY happen from WOT runs. There have been complaints that the head tick has been audiblewhen the dealer took delivery from Ford. If the car is priced appropriately, as long as you can confirm it's the head tick and not a bottom end knock - you can steal yourself a Terminator.

There is no recall on the head tick.

 

Right. While it doesn't ALWAYS happen that way, that is 95% of the head ticks that occur, occur because the car was driven at high speeds WOT....

 

The questions were not asking is how muchfor the Cobra and how many miles are on it. Is it also a one owner car or does it have previous owners. A mod list also if it has any. Then we can put into the price+cost to repair = is the Cobra worth it formula!