This car has been making this noise for some time when cold at first start up. I had two mechanic friends listen to noise. They looked at engine and said it had a timing chain vs a belt. They said timing chair noise.

I took it to the dealer in Redlands California. The invoice for problem says "alternator causing noise" at $140 for diagnosis. The $800 cost to repair was declined. At home I removed the serpentine belt. Hand rotated alternator, tensioner pulleys, A/C pulley, all but crank shaft pulley. All felt OK. Started engine without belt when cold; same noise occurred. Same noise means that dealer did not properly check out car; the alternator was not in the equation this time. I will return to dealer and let them hear the recorded sound that I made from start up to turning off.

Update from May 30, 2018: The versa has 42,000+ miles on it. The dealer found out the noise was caused by low oil pressure when cold. They were in the process of doing paperwork to replace the engine. A Nissan engineer came to verify and found out that the oil pan had an indention on the bottom. It was just enough to restrict oil flow when it was cold. New oil pan fixed the problem. The person who drove the car before me probably high centered on something and caused the indention into the pan.

The dealer did not charge me because they did not diagnose the problem correctly. Thank you Redlands.