Would like some direction on what areas to investigate to resolve this concern. I welcome any first-hand experiences on this issue as well.

Vehicle is a 04 TL 6MT that I've owned since 66K miles and did not have this rattle issue. This rattle noise occurred later in this vehicle life, after driving some people out to lunch. Some of these people tend to slam my passenger-side front door (irritating), since then I don't drive my car for lunch with others. I think it's related, but it may not be.

While driving 70mph+, I hear a rattling noise from lower-half of front passenger-side door in the cabin area. This rattle noise can be described as thin metal vibrating against thin metal or could glass vibrating against metal.

I have removed inside door panel, pulled up plastic cover and tightened up any fastener I could find (including 2 lower screws for glass to regulator. I found nothing significantly loose, reassembled and obviously did not fix problem. I worry this rattle may come from glass to window channel area. Anyone have experience with this?

 

it would help if someone could ride with you. and see if they can hear exactly where it's coming from. even holding down the panel and applying pressure to certain areas to see if anything changes.


A lot easier than trying to figure it out from the seat over.

Good luck.

 

My wife has confirmed noise to come from same location as front passenger and so have I as front passenger. I tried a little on applying pressure to different panel areas, no success thus far.

I believe the noise is coming from the front passenger door, near door speaker area. As previously mentioned, I removed inside door panel and found no loose fasteners, even removed speaker from housing and inspected the area, nothing loose found.

I do plan on riding front passenger and applying pressure to different areas, next opportunity that arises. Any other suggestions?

 

Go here (my own personal hell, for a while):

https://acurazine.com/forums/3g-tl-problems-fixes-114/rattle-question-882224/

The bottom line is, what you think is coming from inside the car may well be from an outside source (in my case, the pass side skirt rattling against the lower body of the car). My car has been silent since this fix.

Best of luck to you in finding the source of the rattle.

This, from my post in the thread above:

What I did yesterday was to completely remove my pass side skirt (very easy) and on inspection, the small rubber flat squares that act as a buffer between the white holding clips and the lower car body are garbage (too thin), so it didn't surprise me at all the potential for rattling here. I used 1/8" thick vinyl Camper Tape, cut into squares through which I placed the white clips (made a hole in the squares of tape), then put these back on the A Spec skirt. This way there is a vinyl pad buffer between the skirt and car body. After reinstallation, I drove at multiple speeds yesterday, and the car is silent.

The reason for writing is to let everyone know that the B pillar rattle that lots of us have may be from a very occult source (the side skirt), and may not even be from inside the car. I know as I've done lots of disassembly on my TL, and found this nearly 2 years after my rattle started.




What I would do is look up the instructions on installing the A-Spec side skirt installation, and take off yours, check for any looseness, tighten them as above, and reinstall. Hopefully, this helps.

 

By the way, here's the DIY- should take 10-15 minutes to remove- you'll see the pads used for buffering against the car are pretty thin, so use something a bit thicker as I indicated above.

http://photos.imageevent.com/astrobo...e_spoilers.pdf

 

Not sure if it's the same thing, but the map holder or whatever it's called can rattle too. I keep mine pulled out on click and it doesn't rattle. Also, the sunglasses holders rattle too. I forget if the passenger side has them.

Joe

 

I appreciate the suggestions, please keep them coming. I'm just trying to get ideas and directions. Ultimately, I'll keep diagnosing as I get time.

I'll keep the side skirt in mind, there may be some possibility there. I have regular factory side skirts and no changes have been made to them since purchase of vehicle.

This rattle noise is not plastic on plastic.

 

Yes yes yes, I know I’m awaking an old thread.

I was wondering if anyone has found a fix for this (map holder/pull out cargo compartment rattle) on the passenger side door. I have to leave mine open to stop the rattle but would like a fix vs work-around.
Any luck, Joe?

 

I thought I was the only one. It's aggravating to the point I just leave the pocket lid slightly open(not 100% open, just to the first click/indent) and that makes it stop rattling. I did have my door panel off to tint my windows and while in there I tried to see what was loose that may be the source of the rattle but no luck.

 

i had my panel off a couple years ago to fix the door lock actuator and couldn’t find the rattle culprit. Rattles absolutely drive me crazy and our cars are plagued with them. My 1997 3.2 TL Premium was tight as a drum even with 185,000 miles not one rattle.

 

I had a rattle on both sides of my TL-S.

The drivers side was due to the retaining screws attaching the mirror being loose.
The passengers side was due to a bad window regulator rail near the top hitting the glass.

After that, it was gone.

I'd check the screws on both, and additionally the 4 screws retaining the trim.

 

Thank you for the reply and suggestions!

Sadly, I think my rattle is somewhere within the door panel itself. I drove around with the panel being uninstalled/left in the garage when I was replacing the door actuator and the sound was gone. I shook and tried to replicate the rattle when the panel was off but couldn’t. I figured the rattle was resolved but once reinstalled, the rattle returned.

Again, the rattle disappears as long as the map holder compartment is pulled to the open position. It’s a temporary fix, a bandaid on the problem but I’d like to remedy the actual cause.