Anyone have a rattle coming from........

ZCarGo

I went on a road trip. I thought everything was taken care of since I hadn't heard much of a rattle until I backed out of my driveway the morning I left on a 600 mile road trip. Rattled the whole damn way.

The first thing I did when I got home was to rip off the plastic covers and try to find the real source. Well, it turns out that it was a combination of things that center around the third brake light. The metal is thin around this area and when you press on the internal pieces (through the holes), I could recreate the noise...good start. Like you, I ended up settling in on the brake light and have come to the conclusion it's really lame how they have attached it to the hatch. As I pushed on the brake light from the inside, I could recreate the noise. It appeared to be fastened as tight as it could be. In fact, once I loosened the nut, the bolt just flopped around and didn't even appear to be attached to the brake light. I couldn't see how it was attached because I didn't have the right driver to remove the hatch hook.

There are two plastic posts that stick through the metal on the hatch. Nissan has put felt around the posts to prevent them from rubbing on the metal. I did move these around the last time I was looking for rattles and apparently settled the light enough to make me think I had fixed the problem. A few days and bumps later, the rattle was back. I ended up wrapping these posts with a foam tape so they don't move and are solid in the holes. This seems to have resolved the problem. The best thing to do when I have more time is to secure the damn tail light, which is the major source of the problem. The other fixes I have done were contributing, but turns out only to a small degree.

For those who think this is a minor issue, I would bet you'd want to dump your car for a civic if you had to deal with this rattle. It's nothing a radio can cover up. It's nowhere close to the high pitched hum others have complained about, which I couldn't hear very well do to the rattling. So perhaps the rattle is a good way to mask the hum.

-ZCarGo-