I just changed all the spark plugs after getting a Cylinder 1 misfire and fixed it, but For the past few weeks the car has been misfiring at idle occasionally. I will pull up to a stop or idle and it will randomly hiccup/miss hard enough to feel it inside.

Few days ago the car the CEL came on again and the car was running good, but maybe slightly down on power, and I was hearing loud ticking, like valve train noise. Ran the code, Camshaft Position sensor Bank 1.

Was thinking ok, the ticking is the timing / valves being off due to the sensor being bad, took it as good news because I was worried something more was bad in the engine.

So i went to get the oil changed just to make sure that while I'm forced to drive it with the bad sensor for a few days that it has plenty of oil. Put in a bottle of Lucas oil stabilizer as well. Day later, check engine light is off, car feels strong, no ticking.

The hell? Should I still replace the sensor just to be safe, or what just happened here?

 

The cam sensor failing would NOT cause a ticking sound, I'm guessing the engine was running low on oil and the low oil pressure caused the actuator to not move the cam enough (actuator uses oil pressure to move) and you ended up with something like a P0011 or P0021 code. A quick google search will likely say that code could be caused by a cam sensor, it's actually caused because the ECM is trying to advance the timing, it's sending the pulse width to the actuator but the actual cam position is outside of the value it's expecting.

Since it went away after an oil change that just confirms my suspicion.

If you actually had a P0340 or P0354 then that meant the ECM didn't see the sensor AT ALL but typically your engine will stall out if that's the case. If you did get that code then just replace the sensor because it's probably failing.

I'm betting it was just low on oil though, start checking your oil level every other week and topping it off as needed. These engine do drink oil.

 

It was indeed low on oil - my car never usually consumes or leaks much oil but I was right at the 5k mile mark when I do my oil changes. I did notice one day when I had to slam on the brakes, the low oil light came on so thats why I immediately went and got the oil change and made sure it was full again.

That makes sense,, thank you Cleric you're always a great help. Cars running awesome now so I think I'm ok.

 

Glad it's all worked out, definitely check that oil regularly.