Rattling Noise Behind Instrument Cluster
 

Hey everybody -

Having an odd issue with my 2012 Base 7AT. I have about 10K miles on the car and have had no drivetrain issues on it to this point.

When I accelerate from a stop, and while underway, I hear a rattling noise that increases with increased RPM's. It seems to start around 2500RPM and stop after about 6000. It sounds like a ratcheting, or the noise baseball cards make when stuck in bicycle spokes (did anyone besides me do that when they were a kid?). It sounds like its coming from right behind the tachometer.

Either way I took it to the Nissan dealer and they replaced the whole instrument cluster, and changed the oil. He told me that the shop I took it to must not have used full synthetic oil like I told them to. I picked up the car and for the first 5 miles the sound was gone, but immediate came back.

Sorry for the length of the description but does anybody have any experience with this and know what it could be? I want to go back armed with a little more info before I make ten trips to the dealership on this issue. The car seems to run fine, but I want to make sure I'm not doing any permanent damage to it.

Thanks!

I have a similar issue. I haven't had time to investigate it yet.

my dash rattles above 4k rpm.... i just shrug it off.

Update:

I drove the car about 300 miles this weekend and after about the first 100 miles of highway driving, the clicking noise went away and hasn't returned.

It's possible based on what the dealer said that the proper oil need to work it's way through the valves for it to disappear.

I'll update if the noise returns.

He also mentioned something about ester oil? Is that worth it on the Z?

Its up to you but I feel the ester oil isn't worth the cost, its $12 a quart and it won't last more than 3000 miles.

I'm running mobil1 0w40 and I am not having any valve chatter or strange noises coming from the engine what so ever, another oil I'd suggest running is castrol 0w30 since it has all the same additives as mobil1 0w40.

I know this thread is a little old but i've been having a rattling noise also that seems to be coming from the gauge cluster area when on highway doing about 50mph and up. If its a smooth road. Nothing, once it becomes rough it almost sounds like a piece of plastic just broke loose and rattling inside the gauges. Anyone else with this issue?

I had a similar rattle and I found the culprit. It was for me a under dash support brace. The two pieces of metal where the weld were wasn't connected all the way and under a certain load, the dash would rattle. I simply used long reach pliers to bend the metal outwards slightly to stop it.
Here are the pics and in the second one you can see the tooling marks from the pliers.
Attachment 84227

Attachment 84228

Hello all,

I know this is an old thread, but I think it's worth mentioning that this solution is really useful.

For a long time, I thought the rattle came either from the door or right under the dash and only at certain RPMs. The solution proposed by the dealer usually involved removing the dash. Being old-school I suppose, I preferred to have the small rattle rather than removing the dash and risking more issues.

This week I found this thread and the solution was really simple! The brace would rattle even when I tapped the bracket. In my case, I didn't bend the metal, I just placed some pipe insulation between the two pieces that rattle and problem solved.

I wanted to say thanks not only for finding the problem but for adding the photos to help locate it.

Can anyone help me find this?