2002 audi a4 making ticking noise

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The 2002 Audi 3.0L has self adjusting hydraulic valve lifters. They can not be "tightened"..best suggestion is get your OBD codes read to see what faults your engine shows as far as poor acceleration. If you do that, write them down and come back here and one of us will be happy to help you decide on what to do next

Oh yeah, I can't tell you not to be worried, you probably are anyway. I don't really think you need to park the car and not drive it at all, but keep it to a bare minimum, important things only until this gets addressed

Do you have to have any lights on for them to hook something up to my car to find out what's wrong with it?

Yes. Not me, but if you take it to a large parts store. like AutoZone or something, they have a tool called an OBD scanner. OBD means On Board Diagnostic. There is a port on your car they hook it up to, and it will show codes, that are stored in a chip in your OBD, if it is engine or transmission, that start with "P" (for Power Train) followed by four numbers, for example P1234, that can be looked up and tell us exactly what is going on. They will do it free also

David is correct on all counts. Felicia, you can find out more about your Audi by checking in at Audiworld.com and Audizine.com -- Both are active sites with thousands of owners.

my car ticks as well but i don't have any loose in power its mostly jsut noisy lifters had head cover seals done and the mechanic said all my heads looked clean. some things are jsut ment to be there and i would suggest geting your crank case hoses looked at a loss in power can often be this when mine got cloged it started backing up my fuel tank with pressure. and coil pack will make a loss in power as well both are easy to look at and find out if they are not working right try sticking your ear near the engine and figure out exactly where the ticking is coming from. but im willing to bet its just sticky lifters. and it should not cause any power loss as my engine has 355K on it and it ticks more then its fair share there and i have no loss in power its peddle down car goes like stink :P

Ticks can be signs of many different things. For instance I would consider checking for exhaust leaks, if uve noticed bad gas millage and the engine perhaps running rough. Could also be dirty lifters which can happen if u managed to get dust/ dirt into the engine which can happen many different ways, and even happens through daily driving regardless usually if u keep up with oil changes this shouldnt be a problem. Ive done it where ive changed the oil and replaced one quart with auto transmission fluid which has lubrication properties but also has a lot of detergents/ cleaning additives in it to help clean seals, this i would only recommend driving with for 500 miles or so then do an oil change with a new filter and new oil. My other thought is the hydraulic timing chain tensioner, this ticking could perhaps be a sign of a failing tensioner which would cause the belt to have a small amount of slack and create that noise. This would be something you would want to check asap because if it is infact a tensioner going out u could end up loosing your timming which inturn will bend valves and worse... very expensive fix!