What does a clicking or ticking sound mean when accelerating or releasing the gas pedal?

Answer

As with all of these questions, the cause could be many things, but one common one is this: The clicking is being caused by a bad exhaust-manifold gasket, which allows exhaust to escape its normal route from exhaust manifold to pipe to muffler. And in escaping that route, the leak makes noise as often as the piston nearest the leak purges exhaust from the cylinder in which it is operating. Hence a clicking noise that increases in frequency with an increase in RPMs.

The guy who said the car needed a tune-up, for one thing, doesn't apparently know much about the way cars work. For another thing, a tune-up doesn't involve replacement of exhaust-manifold gaskets, so getting one wouldn't solve the problem, assuming that this is the problem.

If it's not a valve issue or some other issue, this problem won't hurt the car; it'll just get worse and more noticeable as the exhaust continues to erode the gasket material. Paranoid people who think you can get cancer by waking up in the morning will tell you that this minute amount of exhaust being under the hood will kill you.

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