Riboflavin

So luckily, I'm not posting this thread to get advice, I'm posting it just so the info is available for the next time someone searches for help with finding a weird rear suspension rattle. I'd searched quite a few times and most of the results were about bad shocks, worn bushings, rear speaker shelf, and moonroof rattles.

My rattles were simply coming from loose parking brake cables in both rear brakes. During my searches, I'd only come across maybe 3 posts in the middle of random suspension noise threads that mentioned other people having this problem.

Every time I hit any kind of road imperfection, the front wheels would sound normal, but the rear wheels would make a tinny metallic rattle. No thud, no clunk, specifically thin metal-on-metal rattling contact, and the sound was purely outside since you could only hear it when the windows were open. I bought my 6MT 4 years ago, and I don't remember if my parking brake lever was ever especially tight, but I've definitely had the rattle for at least 3 years.

Within the past couple of months, I noticed my parking brake engagement required the lever to be pulled 16-18 clicks to get the wheels to lock (damn near topped out), and even that wasn't enough to hold the car on noticeable hills. Honda/Acura spec says full engagement should be within 6-8 clicks, so I performed both the major (adjusting the brake shoes) and minor (adjusting the lever) parking brake adjustments, and got my parking brake fully functional again. After that adjustment, the rattles were gone.

Basically, all this time, that rattle was coming from a lack of tension in the parking brake cables, and the ends of them were rattling around inside of the rear rotors. After figuring out what it actually was, it's even painfully easy to diagnose, since I was able to manually shake the parking brake cables that lead into the rotors and hear the rattling inside. I spent so much time looking for worn suspension components, bushings, and exhaust heat shield issues that it never dawned on me to check the parking brake cables. I even did the fix in TSB 11-025 (Right Rear Wheelwell Area Clicks, Taps, or Ticks) and that changed nothing.

At least I finally found the damn thing, and hopefully someone will find my pain useful in the future lol.

Deap Threat84

Thanks for posting. Ive had the same noise for a year now and could not figure out what was loose underneath the car. Im gonna tighten up the parking brake cable and hope this gets rid of that annoying rattle.