I may have an answer for this, which could put your minds at ease a little.
I explained this on my thread, but will post here too, and in the hope that Pat will put an update on his video as a lot of people are going off his video as being gospel, even though it didn't even happen to Pat himself.
I bought my i8 3x weeks ago and it is a 2014 model with 24,000 miles on the clock.
A few days ago i had the dreaded fast ticking noise (sounds like a tyre inflator you plug in the cigarette lighter) from under the bonnet/hood, and hit Google and Youtube which lead me to Pat and this very forum. Here is a video that i took so you can hear what mine was like.
https://youtube.com/shorts/nU3YzbOCc...rbumDm773EtAmT
Naturally, looking at Pats video, i had thoughts of my car being off the road for some time and also costing a fortune to fix (for the garage i bought it from of course).
Everywhere i looked, internet, social media, Youtube etc, all said the same thing...
'Your AC is broken and needs changing. Stop the car immediately or you could cause lots of damage costing MANY thousands of pounds'
I bet many people who said this had watched Pats video or heard of people who ha watched it.
I spoke with the garage i got it from, who were quite happy to fix it no matter what, but wanted me to take it to get re-gassed first to rule that out.
I took my car to a specialists about 17 miles away and let the guy listen to it, and he immediately said that it was low on AC gas/fluid. He said the ticking noise is a solonoid opening and closing due to the lack of pressure.
The i8 should have 630 grams of AC gas/liquid inside of the system, with a certain amount of oil.
Of course if this level drops then so does the oil, which can cause issues.
The machine they use takes out the gas from my system, which it measures, then it cleans the pipes/system out of condensation and refills it with the correct amount of gas/oil.
The machine took only 70 grams from mine, instead of the 630 that should be in there, so was 560 grams short.
Now a possible reason for this, is either its totally normal (if it has not been re-gassed for some time), or it has a leak, which i may not find out for a several months.
He recommends that cars are re-gassed every 2 years, to make sure the oil is in top condition and the gas quantity is where it should be. Also to run your Aircon at all times.
I drove home (plus an extra 30 miles) using, a mixture of electric only, comfort and sport and the noise had completely gone and it also appeared to run better too (but probably a placebo effect).
I wonder how many people this has happened to, who have watched Pats video and unnecessarily spent a few thousand replacing the AC due to being scared about a complete failure when all it needed was a re-gas.
Now dont get me wrong, i am not blaming Pat as he is the guru of all that is the i8 and love his videos and without question will believe what he says (which could actually be the problem), but on this occasion he may have got it wrong by listening to other peoples experiences and reporting them like its gospel.
Also, the ticking/tapping is obviously not supposed to happen, so leave it long enough without checking and you may cause lots of irreparable damage which could amount to thousands as the oil in the AC system is obviously low too.
I just hope that this helps someone.
On the same note, people reporting that its the 2014/15 cars that are prone to this could simply be due to them being older and if gone unchecked the aircon could quite simply be less in the system and the oil degraded due purely to age.