what to do?
 

I have a 2001 Alero, wtih the 3400, and I start it up in the morning and it has a really loud, what my mechanic called a "lifter slap". Now the car only has 81,500 miles on it, is there something that I can do to help fix/get rid of that?

Replace the lifter ...not gonna be cheap

Does it go away as the car warms up? I had maybe the same thing happen to mine but recently I had a new engine put in cuz one morning it wasn't even cold out, the noise was there and it wouldn't go away even when the car warmed up. I got on the highway to go home cuz I was leaving for a vacation that day the car is smoking and dies when I get off at an exit shop tell me all the oil leaked out and the motor locked up.

it might be piston slap which is notorious on the 3400 but lifter tick is not out of the question either.

Yes, it does go away after the car warms up!

if it's lifter tick, change the oil and check you coolant level, you may be leakin dexcool into the oil.

if it's piston slap, it's normal

^^ Yeah, just rolled over 82K here, car's done that since it had 35K on it