I have a loud rattle and can't seem to find out where it's comming from. It's a plastic rattling sound rather than a metal involved and it happens over slightly bumpy roads, and it's loud; comming from somewhere on the driver's side. I can hear it even with the window open.

Can't figuire out if it's the outside mirror (although i had this already and was taken care of) or the front left speaker, or something closer to the window or perhaps some rattle comming from the air/heating vent. Any feedback would greatly be appreciated. It's driving me crazy.

 

This it?

https://acurazine.com/forums/showthread.php?t=166389

 

nalek: OMG! If that's it, move over superman, you're my new hero

I'll post updates. YOU ROCK also because you're the only one who responded to my post.

 

Nope, wasn't it. I did the fix myself with wool felt, something still rattling in there and everything's cramped and a mess. Can't find out what's really causing that rattle. I'm afraid the dealer will have to take my dashboard apart, that's the only reason why i'm hesitating to take my car in.

Seems to be happening only in cold weather and in the morning, it's really strange.

Air vent slides right out though as long as u can grab a firm hold on it and just wiggle it out.

 

I believe I have the same problem. When I press down on the upper dash near the corner speaker the rattle stops. I put some cardboard under the upper dash near the corner post but this did not help. When I turned off the radio and tried to listen closely, it seemed the sound actually was coming more from the front area (windshield) of the dash rather than the vent outlet area. No suscess in finding it so far.

 

Fred99x: yes, that sounds right. It is somewhere around that speaker window-dash area, but not sure where. Im hoping someone might have a clue...

 

I'm pretty sure that I found the problem. As indicated above, the area between the left front speaker and the windshield is where the problem is. When the rattle is happening, if you put your hand on the dash just in front of the windshield, you can feel the dash virbrating badly. If you push down on this area, the vibrating stops. I believe the clips that hold this area of the dash down, are not putting enough pressure to hold the dash down properly. I'm not sure how to fix this yet as removing the upper dash is probably a major under taking. I'm thinking that possibly removing the small speaker cover and the speaker will give me access to the underside of the dash and allow to insert a spacer to stop the rattle. Any one know how to remove this speaker cover? Does it just pop off?

 

My 07 and 08 had some minor rattle that always sounded liek it was coming from behind the guages. Seemed to happen of rough pavement or bumps. I was able to put upward and forward pressure on dah and it woudl stop. I finally found a easy fix to help stabilze dash from vibrating so much. Lowe's sells these rubber pad strips. I will have to get exaact name and part number, but it is a package of rubber adhevise pads, each strip is about 3/4 inch wide by maybe 2-3 inches lonh by maybe 1/4-3/8 think. It is firm rubber. I take 2 of them and stick them togehte rusing their own adhesive strip and then wedges it down between the dash and windshiels just to the right (looking form drivers seat) of where the vin number is. This has done wonders to stop intermittent creaks and buzzing from the dash and inside the dash. pics to follow...

 

Possible the left side of the vent... while driving and experiencing the rattle, try inserting your left pinky finger in the seam between the door and the left side of the vent.

 

OK here is what I did to quiet the sah in my 07 TL and 08 TL-S

I got the rubber grippers at Lowes nears where they have all the rubber bumpers and furniture sliders. They are firm and hold up under the heat and UV.

They look more obvious than they are because of the camera angle and flash, you actually never notice them when driving.







This helps keep the dash from boucing around so much.

 

Opps, sorry pictures missing...

OK here is what I did to quiet the sah in my 07 TL and 08 TL-S

I got the rubber grippers at Lowes nears where they have all the rubber bumpers and furniture sliders. They are firm and hold up under the heat and UV.

They look more obvious than they are because of the camera angle and flash, you actually never notice them when driving.






This helps keep the dash from boucing around so much.

 

I inserted some material as indicated in the photos above and while this helped, it did not remove the rattle entirely. What I then did was to remove the small speaker (they just pop out with careful prying) and insterted a piece folded up cardboard between the outer dash and whatever is underneath the dash. This made the upper dash more solid and removed a lot of the vibration. The rattle in this area is now totally gone. The bad part is that now I can hear other rattles in other areas but this only happens on severe road conditions.

 

Fred99x, that's good news. What did you use to pry out the speaker with? Also, did you happen to take any pictures while doing it?

And I feel your pain with the other rattles

 

I just used a small blade screwdriver and carefully pryed around the speaker. Sorry, no pictures but it's not hard to do.

 

I thought I had the same rattle, but turns out I was looking in the wrong spot. I thought my speaker or vent was rattling, but it was the driver's side mirror. It sounds like a plastic on plastic noise or something. I haven't attempted to fix it yet, but I found that if I'm driving and I push down on the mirror or have it folded in it goes away.

 

Yeah, I know the mirror rattle you speak of. I had the same thing but i was able to identify that rattle rather quickly by tapping on the corner of the mirror by the light; that's how I was able to duplicate it.

This other on is a bit different, seems to only come on in the mornings or during cold weather. As soon as i apply pressure just above the speaker, near the front windshield the rattle goes away. I made an appt. tomorrow at the dealer, hopefully they can resolve it in one shot. I was thinking of trying fred99x's idea, but there is verry little room there to work in. I'm afraid i'll drop things in that hole after i remove the speaker and it'll make it worse. I'll post an update tomorrow after i get some feedback from the dealer.

 

Not sure if I should start another thread, but there's a chance this is similar to my latest rattle hunt. After successfully fixing the center speaker rattle, and a drivers door mirror rattle (fixed with silicone spray), I'm now being driven crazy by a single 'clunk' type rattle on the passenger side (I know this thread is about a rattle on the driver's side, but - the car is pretty symmetrical!). Since it's on the passenger side, I don't have the luxury of reacing out and pressing on stuff quite as easily, and my g/f is not very cooperative with such tasks, so I am really struggling with this one. This rattle sounds like it's the passenger glove box (but I've emptied it, and driven with it open, still have the noise), or the passenger window (but I've driven with it closed/open, no difference), but it could be coming from the windscreen/dash interface. I did notice, while cleaning the dash, that this area is easily moved ('spongy' was my thought at the time). My car has less than 5k miles, and I've just started noticing it.

This rattle is always a single-occurrence sound (that is, not 'rat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat...', just 'clunk'), and only sounds over moderate bumps and at slow speeds only - 10-30 mph - never on the freeway (and it's loud enough to be heard on the freeway). Another way to describe this may be that it's a 'torquing' or 'stressing' sound - sounds like the car is flexing over the bump, flexing in a way that doesn't happen at higher speeds, and something is 'giving'.

Based on this thread, I'll try wedging something between the dash and the windscreen.

I've suspected the passenger side door bucket and insert (removed!), passenger seatbelt (held firmly while driving, no change).

Another theory is the aluminum 'Acura' foot plate (or whatever it's called) that sits on the door sill; it could be a bit loose, but doesn't have the 'mass' to make my sound, I don't think. Anyway, it's a long shot that my issue is the same as this thread, but I'll try the suggestions here. And if any one recognises my problem, please let me know!

 

Had an appt. today with the dealer on the rattle. Before taking the car in I thought I'll drive around the block a few times to duplicate it. But I could not hear it anymore and i've driven on the most horrid roads I could find. This is a rattle that I've put up with for at least 2 months and now when I finally got around to making a dealer appt., I couldn't hear it anymore.

I still took it in, I figuired I have an appt. so might as well. And just as I thought they couldn't hear it either. How screwd up is that?!?!

Steerpike: that rattle is unrelated, but lemme guess... You hear it with the windows open only. When the windows are closed you don't. Am I right?

 

Man, that really sucks! Rattles drive me crazy. Good luck!

No, happens with the window open or closed. I virtually never drive with the windows open ... I love the silence of the ride, and open windows tend to be noisy. I think I'm onto the cause now, so I'm going to start a new thread. Basically, I think it's the seatbelt pillar.

 

^its the hooks' covers behind rear seats ! i jammed some felt in all three like 2 months ago, also fixed the rear deck rattle by the windsheild. now i got no more rattles!! Very cheaply designed IMO

 

I had a few rattles with my 06 TL that drove me nuts. I took my car to the dealer 6 times before they fixed the rattles in the dash and passenger door panel. It was such a pain in the ass and the dealer really pissed me off because they would tell me the noise was gone and then when I drove of the lot the noises were still there.
I had a noise coming out of the dash on the drivers side. The dealer repalced the speaker clips. That didn't work. Then they padded the dash. That did not work. Then they padded the air vents. Again no dice. I finally left the car at the dealer
and I told them I was leaving it there until they found the noise. They literally took the whole dash apart and padded everything down and replaced every clip. The main noise that was rattling was actually coming from the airbag. They found this by mistake because they were going down into the steering shaft hunting for the noise. They took the car out for a test drive without the airbag and there was no noise. So they replaced it with a new one. So far so good. I have 20k miles on the car now and it is pretty tight.

Take your car to the dealer and let them screw with it. It is covered under warranty.

 

Fred99HT: Are you also Fred99X? IF so, what happened to that speaker/dash rattle, did your fix work or did you still have to take it in the dealer for that rattle?

I've noticed that when I too press on the upper dash it stops rattling, even if i press down slightly on the speaker itself. I'm kinda scared to pry it out, not sure how hard that is, also not sure if the speaker itself is small and thin or long inside and tubelike. I did take it to the dealer, the problem is it happens in the morning when it's cold outside.

 

I am new to this forum and that was my first post.

 

Fred99HT: Yeah, sorry about that

It's good to know that the dealer was able to resolve your rattles. I'm scared to take it in because of the fear that they'll have to take my dashboard apart also. But it's really annoying so I'm left with no choice really I'll wait a bit longer till it gets really cold, then you can really hear it.

BTW: Welcome to the Acurazine forums ^_^

 

I removed the small speaker to see if that was it. Sadly it wasn't. Rattle is still there, it might as well be a clip. I'm taking the car to the dealer tomorrow morning, hopefully the rattle is still there. The annoying part is that sometimes you can't hear it at all and sometimes it's annoying as heck. Seems to be worse in cold weather.

I'm really scared they'll take the whole dash apart to replace a cheesy clip or whatever is causing that plastic tapping/rattle sound.

 

Removing the speaker itself will not solve the problem. When the speaker is removed, there is an area in the right side (from sitting in the driver seat) of the speaker cavity that you can insert the folded up piece of cardboard to put upward pressure on the dash deck. The speaker can then be reinserted. This action did help with the rattle but I found that under more extreme vibration from road harshness, a rattle was still there. I then folder some cardboard about 1/2 inch wide and 1/2 inch thick, and wrapped this in a black material so as not to be readily visable. I inserted this piece between the upper dash and the windshield just to the left of the serial number plate. This put a downward pressure on the dash and all the rattles from this area of the car are now gone.

 

I have that same problem in my 07 TL, to me it sounds like a buzz. I tried pushing down on the center speaker and it did not really do anything. My hearing is very particular, I dont think its comming from the driver vent, but I'll drive around the block and take a listen (gotta grab dinner).

 

ncinirator: Mine started with a buzz too, or more like a frequent gentle tapping. That has evolved to the rattle i hear now. Strange thing is it only happens sometimes, I took the car to the dealer for the 2nd time this morning and not a single sound. I'm not making any more appts, next time i really hear it, i'm driving it straight to the dealer. I'm sure they'll have to take the dash pannel apart and they'll probably screw things up even more, but at this point, im chewing my nails and its driving me insane.

It'll be easy to see if you have the same thing, next time you're driving and you hear that "buzz" press on the area above the drivers side upper dash speaker. If it goes away, welcome to the club. Keep us updated.

 

I drove around and figured the noise was comming from the center speaker cover. I pushed down on it and it stopped, but not much it was kinda muffled for lack of a better term. I figure on taking off the speaker cover and checking things out from there. I'm finishing up what left of my Glenmorange sheryy wood, so if I can get up in the am to do it illl let you knoww

This happened when I stopped for gas.

 

can dealer fix this problem?

 

Finally fiexed

Took it to the dealer and even though it was not as loud as the other times, this time there was just a gentle tapping sound, tech was able to hear it. What he did is take out the left air vent, the one to the left of the steering wheel, and inserted a foam sponge between the upper part of the dashboard and the air vent tube. I haven't opened it to see the results he just explained it to me.

As it turns out, one of the air conditioning vents that runs under that dashboard region was touching the upper part of the dash and that's what was causing that rattle. Been rattle free for a week now. Feels so good, I've been dealing with that for over 6 months, and everytime I took it in, they couldn't hear it. It was there only during cold weather, ie. early early mornings and sometimes late nights.

 

UGH! I hate rattles and I too have joined the list of TL owners. I had one that sounded like it was coming from the rear speaker but the dealer was able to find it. Apparently it was the third brake light that was responsible and now that is gone.

Now, the one that concerns me the most is the one that sounds like it's coming from the windshield area. I dread having anyone take the dash apart. I have a bad feeling that it will come back with more problems.

So what is the consensus? Where is the rattle coming from and what should I be telling the service manager to look for and how to fix it?

Thanks in advance.