Astra 1.6 Life petrol manual estate 08 reg 112510 miles.
This car was bought for my daughter living in Enfield. She complained that warning lights kept coming on, so I collected it and left her my Omega 3.2 for transport. It now runs all right, but has a worrying rattle on cold start, that has been there since I bought it. The oil light goes out immediately on engine start, but the engine rattles for about a second afterwards. Listening with bonnet open and my head level with the cylinder head noise appears to come from the centre of the cylinder head. I have removed the gauzes from the variable valve timing (VVT) solenoids as advised by DG, but rattle remains.
On restart no rattle occurs, but after an hour's cooling it does. It's as though once the oil reaches the head all is well.
Please advise.