Surfcaster: Love that sound too - and there was plenty of it this morning.
Lots of guys remove the clicker I guess for stealth reasons, but for me it's part of the game.
And it makes the same noise when the spool is off. I searched some forums and saw that some guys claim they got theirs off the shelf w/o any oil in it at all.
I'm tempted to fish it til the run is over and then let VS do what they need to do to it - if anything. I would assume any work that is needed is covered by that one year warranty.
I'll have a couple local guys who have VS's look at it to get an opinion before I run it all the way to Old Saybrook.