I just got my car today--my father's old 98 2.3 CL. I drove it from NY back to NJ. I get my license on Tuesday, at which point it will be officially mine.

However, I'm noticing a clearly autible rattling noise. It seems as though it's coming from under the car and sounds almost like something dragging. It sounds F'ing horrible and I really have to figure out what's wrong with it. You can't look cool in a car that rattles. Can anyone tell me what the problem is? Thanks.

 

muffler>? exhaust?

 

It's coming from underneath the mid-section of the car...more towards the front than the back...

 

maybe itz the heat shiled....i remember someone posted that they had a rattling noise coming from underneath and it ended up being their heat shield.

 

Someone said it could be the catalytic converter?

 

if its rattling near the front try this........put the car in neutral and slowly rev the car up to about 5K RPM's.....if the it rattles at certain RPM's and not at others....more than likely its the heat shield.......


Most dealerships can tighten it down or weld it for under 75 bucks.....uness its rusting or damaged and you need a new one which might be around 200 bucks with labor. I used to work at a VW dealership and heat shields rattled alot on the older cars....just a common nuisance

 

if it is the heatshield take it to a muffler shop they might just pull it off for free.... that will solve your problem... you don't really need the heat shield so no worries.

 

Yeah, it only rattles around 2000 rpm's, anything beyond that it doesn't. Nice. Thanks a lot...I'll go to the shop pronto.

 

yeah, same thing with me...only around 1500-2000 rpms....so i ripped off the heat shield...and it still does it...so they said that i might have a bad catalytic converter...

 

^^That sucks...I really hope it's not the catalytic converter...