TheNip73

Alright, I gave into my resistence of being the guinea pig and took in my TL for the ever annoying sterring wheel area rattle. The first trip in they replaced and insulated some internal steering wheel sensors. Things were fine for a day and BAM the rattle returns. Drove the car to the dealer and told them it was back. It was really bad this time and they acknowledged the issue existed, as the first time I brought it in it wasn't rattling much. They ripped appart the entire steering wheel and dash and supposedly iinsulated and double checked connections on everything they could. I went by to check how things were going and they said they just finished. I took it for a spin and the rattle was improved but still present. They will be doing some more work on it tomorrow.

I'll provide an update again tomorrow, hopefully with the solution, as I know a few others have this dreaded issue as well and would appreciate some insight indicating that at least there is hope.

TheNip

PS: To all of you without a rattle in the drivers compartment, consider yourselves lucky -- a sound similar to two legos being shaken in a bag everytime you hit a bump gets stale very fast!

TheNip73

Good news. I got the car back and have had about 50 miles of rattle free driving. The solution was to remove the gauge cluster bolts and resecure them with some felt like material in the threads to better insulte the gauge cluster. The exact wording on the third of my service slips for this repair says "removed cluster and insulated all wiring and mounting hardware. Roadtested and the noise is gone."

Best of luck to the rest of you. My car is as quiet as being in a coffin, at least for now


TheNip

Lore

Thank you for this information. If this rattling comes back I will ask that my service department does this for me. I think I've kinda forgotten about it.

I had a rattle in the steering wheel itself and it turns out that the horn connector was loose and needed to be insulated as well.

Norse396

I took mine in for the glove-box rattle, they fixed it so good it's twice as bad now. It goes in next week for more tweaks. On a side note the guy who worked on it busted his butt on my car, so I'll deal with a constant non-stop will it ever go away rattle for a few more days.

TheNip73

Rattles suck to diagnose. I feel bad for the Acura techs who get stuck working on em. I know I personally get more irritated by a rattle than I do a major repair and I let the dealership know it if they can't get things fixed, even though they may have spent hours with the car.

Down with rattles :bigun2:

jzinckgra

Well my car just started with that steering wheel rattle too.

TZVECL

So I'm one of the prior steering wheel rattle thread starters...

I was actually good for about four weeks, since they took apart my column (for the second time) and "fixed" it.


Now it's back, plus I now have (for the first time) the lovely glove box rattle (I am at 3 months and 3900 miles).

Also, the driver's window rattles with the music (when it's loud). This started about a month ago, and it just gets worse.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the car. I love it even more since it's a lease (I can't imagine what kind of sounds this thing is going to make after a few years)

TheNip73

Take everything out of the glove box and drive around. It could be something in the glove box...

MN CLS

Which dealer in the Twin Cities serviced your car/rattle, and how was their attitude towards it???

TheNip73

I bought the car at Buerkle Acura, but they are the farthest dealer from me so I had the rattle fixed at Bloomington Acura-Subaru. I was very pleased with the job they did. They set me up with a loaner, but it was gone so they got me a lincoln towncar rental. Their first fix didn't work so I drove back two days later at 6pm without an appointment or even calling them and they went for a test drive with me and got me a loaner on the spot and found a way to sneak my car in that day before they closed at 1 am. They did get the rattle improved, but I could still hear the muffled sound of the rattle if I listened hard so I told they the rattle was improved but that I was worried the rattle was band-aided and not fixed so they kept it overnight and got it back to me the next day. On their third time they did get it fixed and despite taking three times to get it fixed I never heard any complaints from them.Infact they were very accomodating and all-in-all I would give them two thumbs up and I will go back to them with confidence.

MN CLS

That is the shop that I have been using for my CL, and I generally agree with your assessment, was just curious if it was Buerkle since I might buy the TL from them and they are about equal driving time from me.

By the way, how was the buying experience from them, were they willing to deal?

TheNip73

I thought they were ok to deal with for buying. However no deals and they inflate thier accesory prices quite a bit. If you want the floormats, bra, mudgards, trunktray, etc. I would buy them elsewhere. Also, it seems they like to do a lot of dealer add-ons there, so expect to pay a bit more. For example the car I bought already had the body moldings and mudgaurds so I had to get them, which is fine because I wanted them anyway. I noticed similar add-on on most of their other inventory as well.

Good luck with you TL shopping. You shouldn't be too pressed to have a good experience. I've been to the 3 twin cities dealers and all seemed to be good. Also, if it matters to you, White Bear Acura-Subaru is the only Acura Precision Certified (or whatever they call their elite dealer program) in the twin-cities. You might want to check them out. That is where I wanted to buy my car, but they had 0 TL's on the lot availible for purchase. You had to order.

TheNip73

Bad news. The rattle is back. The car goes in again in a week. they are giving me a loaner for 4 days so they can get down to the bottom of things. I'm sure I don't need to say it, but I'm not pleased. My first Acura may be my last. This thing rattles more than a Grand Prix, and thats a feat!

gregory28

I had a rattle coming from my steering wheel- so I thought- when I picked up my '04TL. It turned out to be a loose screw in my dashboard. If I banged the steering wheel one could hear the rattle. I took it back and they fixed it expeditiuosly.

greg

TheNip73

I'll bang my wheel tomorrow morning on the way into work. Thanks for the info. I'm going nuts over here. I even had the pleasure of my malfunction light flashing 5 times tonight (continously, not 5 incidents) when I punched it from 40 to 70 on the freeway. With each passing day I begining to think I could have gotten an Audi A4 and had less issues.