Annoying ticking noise...

[Eureka]

Hi all,

A couple of months ago I bought a 2007 Fiesta Zetec. It's certainly a great, fun little car.

However, it has one annoying problem: whenever the air con is on there is a ticking noise which comes from somewhere under the dash area. It ticks every 5-6 secs...(but not with exactly the same time interval between ticks).

I had the car serviced for the first time yesterday and asked them to look into it. When I collected the car the reply I got was basically "they all do that". They said that the ticking was coming from a relay which controls the air con...basically telling it when to turn on/off (even though the ticking occurs all of the time - not just when the temperature is reached etc). They said they had tried the air con in other Fiestas and they all make the same ticking noise.

So, is this true? Do all Fiestas 'tick' when the air con is on? It's a fairly loud tick and the only way to drown it out is to have the radio on - not very good on a 12-month old car!

(Apologies if this has been asked before - tried searching but didn't see anything).

Many thanks.