'98 1.5l with 149k miles: When the engine is fully warmed up (after nearly an hour of running), a light scraping noise occurs at idle. It doesn't get any louder when accelerating off idle - in fact, maybe even goes away. It has been doing this for several months and has not gotten any worse. Anything these cars are notorious for?

 

you can check 2 things you can check start your car and take a wrench and take the idler pully and pull up to loosen it if the noise goes away then turn off the motor take the belt off take the pully off and check if the pully is still good if it is, the second thing i would check is if you have air conditioning it is the clutch inside the compressor is shot, but thats going to cost you to get fixed.

 

I'd also check the exhaust heat shield. Mine rattled a bit when cold, but maybe the expansion with heat causes something to be loose. Is it noticeable to someone who doesnt own the car? How about while inside?

 

I think darkstar may be on the right track. The clutch is toast, I believe, because it will cycle erratically in the Summer when I try to run the air (so much so, in fact, that I gave up on the air). Is it going to lock up eventually and throw the belt, then?