I have a 97 4 door Kick with 115,000km.  

I get an engine knock/rattle on startup for a couple of minutes and then it goes away.  It has been happening for about a month now.  Just had a oil change (5W30) on Thursday.

I'm gettin a wee bit concerned.  Should I be?

Is it a knock, or a rattle? Need more detailed descriptions of said noises

That's around 80,000 miles, and you
probably have piston slap, that's from
driving a cold engine, when it's cold
you should let the engine warm for
at least 2 min and then drive very easy
until the heat starts to blow quite warm,
not totally hot yet, but the engine is warm
enough to drive normaly, but easy until at
full opperating temp

I know this sounds like a PITA, but it will
make the engine last, I refer to a girl I knew
in highschool that ran her new car hard from
a stone cold startup, it was blowing blue oil
smoke after less than a year, worn out rings
from her frequent 5000 RPM startups and
donuts in the dirt parking lot, I learned a
good lesson from her, you can learn from
it too

Wild

I would probably refer to it as a rattle.

Whan the engine warms up it does "go away".

I am not a speed demon, so I do take it easy, but I have put a SnowBear plow on for the winter.  I will make sure she is warmed up before plowing.

What about an additive to the oil so that the pistons are not dry?  How about using a synthetuc rather than a conventional oil.?

Does it mean the engine is on the way out, or is it normal.

Your wrist pins could be a little loose!I also have a 16 valve and they are real cold blooded, I have to turn my heat control all the way off for the engine to warm up and then it takes about fifteen minutes to get to where I can turn my heater on. I have tried alot of diffrent combos on oil and filters and so far the best one seems to be castrol 5w30 and a napa gold filter made by wix or there nascar filter that spins the oil inside it(it's a little bit cheaper but I run it.)made by wix also.The valves become very noisey with synthetic oil and other brands,the oil filter seems to make the biggest diffrence,I just changed my oil on friday and added a bottle of prolong, the idle is coming up so much I will have to adjust my throttle body(been messing with it anyway I think it is wore out messing with the tps.) so I would say yes to prolong so far, on the power with it I will have to wait for summer as they changed over to winter fuel here and can not give it too much gas on ice even in 4x4 will spin all four still, what brand oil and filter are you useing?

I would second the 5-30 oil, unless
where you live it gets really cold, then
Mobil1 0-30  might be in order, stay
away from Fram filters, Wix or Napa
Gold.

The piston slap is just noise, caused by
loose pistons, I'm running the stock
pistons, and they have 270,000 Miles
of which the last 30,000 have been
turbocharged, no you engine isn't on
it's way out, if you take care of it.

The worst thing you can do is drive
a cold engine, when the engine and
oil are cold, wierd things happen with
the oil, 1. it doesn't flow well when cold,
and 2. oil will tear, yes as in half, you
can shear the oil molecules, which means
they are no longer oil, but allow friction and
wear, this is where the Zink conpounds in the
oil are the last resort to frevent metal to
metal contact, a lighter weight oil will help
prevent tearing, and a smaller weight change
oil also helps prevent this too.

A 5-20 oil is less prone to being damaged
than a 5-30, unless this is a synthetic oil
then all these shear and tear stats go away.

Wild

I got the shop to put in 5W/30.  Filter . . . not sure, they had a bunch of Fram on the rack, but there were some other there as well.  I will pop the hood and take a gander.

It does not get overly cold here in NL.  So I guess I will stick with the 5W.

I have started taking a few minutes to let her warm up before driving off.  I will shut off the heater next time to halp speed up the process.

The heater only blows cold
air until warmed up anyway