Tick and burning oil

[Pro5ordie]

Hi,

First things first, my P5 has a lifter tick that has been around for a while now and it burns oil on start up. I have seen absolutely no evidence that I'm burning oil while driving. My father is suggesting we pull the head and get it re-machined to alleviate the oil issue(we assume it's passing the valves since it is only on start up), but that seems like a complete pain in the you know what. I saw somewhere online that the lifter noise could be from the valves getting all out of whack with the cams, requiring only a simple adjustment. Could this also cause the burning oil? Any fixes for either of these problems that don't involve massive work(i.e. pulling the head) would be much appreciated. Thanks.

 

[tweety2300]

Valve seals aren't bad if you pull the head off. Make sure you get them from Mazda. If you use Felpro or others they will still leak. Also a good time to check for abnormal wear while it's apart

As for the lifters you have to measure tolerances and get shims in the correct size. Google it, it's simple but hard to explain

 

[Pro5ordie]

Would you recommend just pulling the entire head and getting it rebuilt then, if that's the case? It has 127,500 miles on it.

The lifter stuff is just baffling me because I've never worked on a car with overhead cams before. I'm kind of a noob when it comes to imports.
Thanks a bunch for the response.

 

[Pro5ordie]

If it helps any, I just thought to add that it ticks on start, during hard acceleration at any speed, and during any minor acceleration changes above 55 mph(i.e. taking foot off the gas, giving it more). It doesn't tick at all, at least not that I can hear, during city driving.