Anubus12

I'ved done a search and a few types of rear deck rattles. These are some causes I've found:

1) Subwoofer and overall deck rattles with heavy bass.
2) Rear side curtain airbags cannister rattles.
3) Rear seat belt tensioners rattles.

But I think I have another type of rattle. It happens with no music on, light to no bumps on the road. The rattling seems to come from the right rear corner, behind the right rear speaker and close to where the back windshield meets the rear deck.

I press on the area without any results. It almost sounds like the rattle is coming from the trunk.

Anyone else experience this and know how to fix it?

Thanks.

05whitetl

Drive from now on with all windows down, radio up to highest level, and gas pedal floored. You wont hear any rattles after you do this.

TotalyLeO

and you tend to think your the only one, i have the same exact symptoms.
its driving me crazy not knowing what or how to get rid of it.

anyone else???

VelfarreClubber

Don't stress about it, i had that same one and took it to the dealer and now its gone

abirvalg

i've got it
it sound as if somebody is throwing tiny beads at the rear glass
weird but it only happens in the morning
after a day of seating in the open sun it goes away

2VelfarreClubber: did they tell you what it was?

Goldglv

I've got the EXACT same rattle too!!! I can't locate it, I agree, it sounds like it's coming from the rear window somewhere. It seems to happen whenever it rains or right after we had a lot of rain. Does anyone have a fix for this?

abirvalg

i'm taking it in monday
i'll let you know what they find
so far it looks like it may be the airbag canister
it's located right in the pillar there
and it's metal
the sound is too "sharp" to come from anything plastic

stevesTL

I had the same rattle. It sounds like it is either from the right rear deck or from the trunk. Actually it was from the rear center brake light cover. I had to ride back there to figure it out. The sound travels down the glass and makes it sound like it is from the deck. The dealer took care of this for me, once I discovered where it was coming from.

gtb513

I have this or a similar noise. It sounds to me like a tiny solonoid clicking on and off, there's no pattern to the clicking and it sounds like its coming from the right (passenger) rear seat belt assembly. I'm going to make an appointement next week with the dealer.

abirvalg

well, it's been a while since my last post ...
here's what's happening
sorry for the long post

as planned i went to the dealer with the rear deck rattle(clicking noise) issue
unfortunately for me i had to take a long road trip right the day before
whatever the rattle was it was gone when i brought the car to the dealer
the mechanic was nice enough to listen to me not just the car
and he checked the airbag canister mounts like i suggested
... i should have looked at his hands first
he could lube gears by just rubbing them
oh, sorry, i forgot to mention i have parchment interior ...
ouch!
when i got the car back i had oily fingerprints on the c-pillar cover
(the funny thing is - i brought a pair of vinyl gloves for them to use and showed him where i put them, just to find them untouched)
the cover was not installer properly and pushed on the rear shelf down creating a gap
and to wrap it all up the airbag canister mountings were fine

a day later the noise was back ...
i took the car back and when for a ride with the same guy
this time he heard the noise
and we rescheduled
meanwhile i was thinking, if that guy can't wash his hands clean and can't put the gloves on, i want to change the guy!
so i came back and had a chat with the service manager about the light trim, dirty hands and noises
he was polite and assigned another guy to work on my car
however it looks like in order to fix the gap between the c-pillar cover and the shelf they will need to take the rear seats out
with a weekend in front of me i decided to spare myself aggravation of getting the messed up trim again
and i took the seats, both c-pillars and rear shelf out myself
that and the whole set of trunk trim are sitting at my living room floor right now

a week or so after my first visit i bring the car back with everything out of the way and the clicking as loud as it's ever been hoping that this time nothing will stop them from fixing it
they called me at work and told me that everything is taken care of
they re-torqued a few bolts, something popped and the clicking was gone

as soon as i drove the car of the lot something popped again and sure enough the clicking is back ...
at which point i'm starting to loose hope that it will ever go away
next day i called them up and said i want to come back in a couple of day only this time i will wait or drive the car for them if they need me to

so a few days later i bring it back in
all the pencil pushers at the service department are looking at me like i'm being pain their asses
the mechanic i'm working with is the only one who shares my own pain
this is obviously not the way i want things to go ...
i'm going nuts from the noise, i have 40min worth of driving each way to get to work
and i'm starting to notice that i'm taking my anger out on people who don't deserve it
the last thing i need is for those a-holes to give me condescending looks

so before i gave my car to the mechanic i invited the service manager (the head of their service department) to take a ride with me, just to show him what we are up against
a couple of blocks later to my surprise the guy takes off the passenger seat and heads for the back of the car
right over the armrest and what not ...
and that's where he spent the next two and a half hours
we stopped to get some tools, but the rest of the time he was in the back with the stethoscope and i was driving
just like before he manages to pop something but that doesn't stop the clicking
two and a half hour later he starts to get car-sick (from driving without the seats) but he is just as frustrated as before about the source of the noise
he tells me it must be one of the welds around the trunk hinge mounting and they'll have to schedule a visit to a body shop for me, so those guys can break the welds and re-weld it again
later that same day he called Acura and asked them if they had a case like this before
apparently there was only one other "lucky" owner before me who's car had to be taken to a body shop for the same type of problem in the same exact spot
so he set up an appointment in september for me ...

i'll post updates when i have them

now i'm sitting here and thinking
i'm a freak when it comes to keeping my car in a top notch shape
6 months 9k miles
hand wash every weekend
zaino every other weekend
it's looking cleaner and better than the day i drove it off the showroom floor
and here we are talking about breaking the welds, most likely taking the rear glass out, welding re-painting (hopefully) and a bunch of careless mofos walking around it with sharp metal tools ...
what are the chances they'll get it all done without messing anything else up?
slim to none
i'm thinking about may be calling acura myself and having then send a rep out to give me a second opinion
what do guys think? will they do it?

abirvalg

so i called acura and ...
they told me to go chase myself!
not literally
they said if want a second opinion i should go another dealership
so i did ...

the manager said mechanic can't ride in the back (i had some pillows there cause the seats are still out) because ... here it comes ... THERE IS NO SEAT BELTS THERE!
well the seatbelts were in place, but there was hardly anything to strap yourself to
so we go for a ride with the technician in the passenger seat the car rattles just like it did before and they tell me to leave it with them for the day
before i left i asked the manager to ask the tech to wash his hands before he gets in cause by the look he just finished working on somebody's transmission
the manager assures me that they clean their hands and put the gloves on
and i must have had some bad experience before

they called me a few hours later saying the car is done

here is what i found when i picked it up ...

every damn surface in the car trim, leather, plastic has either finger prints or scuff marks
doesn't look like it was done on purpose, i should have just talked to the tech myself
anyways it looks like they used a crow-bar to break the welds
things around the problem area look really "worked on"
but the noise was gone!
i'll give it a few more days before i consider this issue a bad nightmare gotten to an end
i didn't even complain about the mess
figured i'd cut them a slack, so long as the repair actually worked

abirvalg

that's it!
i'm back to loving it!
the silence is "ringing"
i don't have any other rattles or squeaks ... yet
and with the amount of sound deadening material i put around the rear deck while it was all taken apart i probably got the quietest deck ever made
i just got over 10k miles and i enjoy every minute of driving!

neal831

I had the same noise you are all referring to here and in other posts. It finally turned out to be a bad strut. After checking every bolt, weld and every moving and non moving part, the only thing left was the strut. After replacing it, the noises are gone. The strut itself was bad and it had some unusal marking on it that indicated that it was functioning properly. Before you go crazy, check it out. I had also seen similar issues with other vehicles on the internet. When you do a search for "bad strut", I found a description of a Camry with a similar clicking noise and the source was the strut.

PeterUbers

iTrader: (1)

Once solution to one of my five rear deck rattles (all fixed now for many months) was the XM receiver which is conveniently located in the right rear trunk behind the felt lining of the trunk. The bolts on the XM receiver weren't tightened down, so when i hit a light to moderate bump.. the whole unit vibrated very briefly and the sound resonated through to the cabin and sounded as if it were coming from the window -- luckily, a very clever tech at Acura figured this out and tightened down the two bolts.

aloedesign

I have this problem as well. I have taken out the back seats, and the noise now sounds like it is coming from within 6 inches of an opening just below the top of the seatbelts.. on either side. ( i don't think it's being caused by the seatbelts themselves, just in that area.) when the seats were in, it was more muffled and sounded like it was coming from the center back of the rear deck/ window. I tried a little silicon around the bolts in that area and it had no effect. I think I could pinpoint it if I was going to take apart the entire rear deck.. I'm not sure if I'm willing to do that though.

abirvalg

if the seats are out there's not much left to take apart
c-pillar coveres - pop the airbag clips and pull them off
the rear shelf only has the regular clips - pop it up and slide it out
oh, almost forgot the trunk trim will have to go as well
but that's a no brainer
taking all the trim out will help pin-point the problem
and if and any point of your search you decide to bring it to a dealer there's goint to be less things for them to mess up

if your noise if a sharp clicking at the time when the frame flexes (such as going over smooth bumps) and a nail equipped stethoscope on the strut mounts shows that it's not coming from there, chances are you're in the same boat as i once was
however had i the knowledge i have now i would have fixed it myself

basically what you need to find is the "bad" welds
they are not bad per say but they do have a lot of paint around them stuck i between two sheets of metal and making the noise you hear
mine was right where the rear shelf bends down ad meets the side wall of the car at the base of the c-pillar
those could only be reached from the trunk
you need to have someone drive while you try to find the source
chances are you won't be able to tell exactly where it's coming from
but you will know the area
that's all you need
there is a few point welds where any two sheet of metal meet
you nedd to pry them apart slightly
a flat screw driver will do the job just fine
you'll hear a lot of pops and clicks while you're at it
do get scared it very hard to break an actual spot weld
what makes the noise is the "paint welds" and that's exactly what you're trying to get rid off

let us know what the outcome is
and good luck!

aloedesign

Well I took it all apart and pried at the paint welds and nothing happened. I mean it clicked and popped- but my particular rattle was unchanged. I took it to a dealer and went for a ride with a tech, and he decided that my trunk springs were "bad".. I guess for some reason they were popping when the body flexed sometimes. he had his hand underneath the rear deck toward the back while I was driving and said he was able to muffle the noise by keeping his hand on the springs.. Upon getting the car back, the problem seems to be completely fixed.
They also fixed my rattle where when the windows are part way down, it sound like the car is gonna fall apart.. they put some kind of gunk in there (that is sort of streaking up the windows now)
and the bonus of taking it apart myself was- I got to put dynamat on the deck while I had it apart- and put some felt and dynamat on the seatbelt coil that sits right next to the sub (and rattles terribly during bass), the stereo sounds a lot better now! so it wasn't a complete loss.
now, on to the rust spot.

abirvalg