5.0nly

Besides the cold start rattle, is there another way to tell if the motor needs a timing job done?

Tothemax

The startup noise is the tell tale sign. When the timing chain was going bad in my wifes car the fuel mileage started to taper off and it sounded a little rough / noisy at idle.

cwoodffr

Mine had a variety of codes but was running quite well, to a bit noisy at idle and some stumbling on acceleration. Then it got so bad so quickly that it was to the point of barely running. Don't let it go too long...it won't get better or repair itself.