1999 Plymouth Voyager, 3.0L 6cyl 130,000 miles on it. It recently started rattling and sounding like a farm tractor or deisle engine... First only at idle then higher RPMs.

I am thinking oil pump.


What say you?

Have you connected a direct pressure gauge to see what pressure the pump is producing?

That would be beyond my skill level. I just like to have a good idea of what is going on before I take it to the shop so that I am not getting taken for a ride. The oil pump has never been replaced.

That happened to me once, after an oil change and it was the old oil filter gasket trapped in the filter mount and the new filter gasket could not seal properly and I was venting oil (low oil level and the lifters really made noise).