Q: My car flooded and now it ticks. How do I stop it?

Hi, thanks for writing in. There is a good chance that the ticking sound you may have heard was an indication of low oil levels in your engine. When motor oil is low or due for a change, it can cause metal parts to touch more frequently without the proper lubrication causing the ticking sound you describe. When the oil is low, this is simply a lack of oil supply to all of the areas of the engine due to lack of proper oil pressure and circulation. This can also happen when oil is broken down an loses its viscosity (thickness) which is what provides the protection against wear on mechanical parts. The reason the ticking sound gets faster when pressing the gas pedal is, as engine RPM’s increase, so do the speed of internal engine parts. The metal on metal sound described above becomes faster as the engine speeds up. As you have noticed, this may have gone away when you had the engine oil changed. If the noise continues or becomes worse again, I would suggest having a professional from YourMechanic come to your location to further diagnose this noise problem.