My wife's car was dead as a doornail this morning. After getting jumpered, I ran it around for about 40 minutes and then stopped to get gasoline. Again, it was dead. Took it to Autozone where I'd bought a new batter last year. Not the battery. But I noticed that the ticking, although it occurred sometimes while driving, really didn't start happening on a repeatable basis except after I'd turned off the ignition and it sat for about 20-30 seconds. Then it started up and didn't stop. I assume this is what drained the battery last night.

It's not a faint clicking sound either--it's loud and regular. I tried going through the fuse panel to see if I could just disable whatever circuit it was running on. But after removing all forty or so fuses from the inside and under dash panels one at a time and then reconnecting the battery, it still did its thing.

I've heard that the air actuators can cause a loud, regular tapping sound in the dash--but after the key's been turned off? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

my dads 92 GMC would tap real loud.. it was sumthing with the AC..like the little door that tells the AC to go to the vents or defrost... even after the key was out it would do it for a few seconds... we never figured out why..and after a year maybe 2 it quit...

 

I'm having this same problem with my 07 Impala they took it to Peoples tires they said it was the door actuator in the vent system.

 

I thought for a while it was my actuator for the heat n air. When I press in the hazards the tapping stops. And it sounds like it's in the steering column. Must be something in the column. Any ideas?