[Gavine]

Mine ticks intermittently on cold starts as well. I've brought my car to the dealer a couple of times but haven't had any luck getting it to happen in front of them. It's a real pain to drop the car off and meet them the next morning. And, kind of embarrassing when it doesn't happen.

The tech acknowledged the problem as being common, but their hands are tied unless it can be repeated.

He did explain why it is intermittent though. It only will happen if a DOD lifter just so happens to be compressed by the cam after shutting down. In that case, the oil in the lifter drains-down and the next time you start, it is stuck until it can get saturated with oil again. The noise you hear is the cam lobe hitting the lifter because it is not riding on the cam when it is stuck in a compressed form.