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

the passenger side? I can't figure out if its coming from outside, or inside. Its so damn annoying man. I lived with a horrible glove box rattle with the g35 for 3 years!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, I have horrible rattles coming from that area too. Seems like the head liner and the faux suede door insert do a lot of rattling. I also have one that just started and sounds like it's coming from the very back of the hatch.

It's so annoying I HAVE to drive with windows down and every time I drive the car I'm so pissed off I spent $37k on something that rattles like this. No matter how good the car is this really makes it feel like a total POS.

What trips me out, is at first I thought it was coming from the back, then I realized it sounds more like passenger side rear. I don't know man. I almost killed myself trying to figure it out on the freeway this morning.


It sounds like 100 drops of water are hitting a tin can all in sucsession. :(

If it sounds tinny make sure the nut that holds down the spare is tight.

How many miles do you guys have on your cars before the rattling started?

Thanks
-H-

I have it occasionally. We had a member who had it, took the panels off in the back and found that the mechanism that locks the gas cover was rattling against something. He put a little rubber foot thing from home depot to prevent it from rattling and it fixed the problem. I just tried to search and I didn't see it right away but if you look you will find the post. I think thats where my rattle is coming from - right behind the gas cap on the inside, I've just been too lazy to fix it.

Thanks for the advise, I will check all those things. Thas why I posted, to get some ideas of what it migh be.

Car has 950 miles on it by the way.

This is my first hatchback, and I was always nervous about them, as every one I have sat in sounded like the car was falling apart after a few years.

Im going on my break to check on gas cap, and spare tire tightness.

Its def not coming from my side though!

One rattle I discovered that could be common comes from under one of the trim pieces on the hatch lid. The rear panel has a large rectangular metal piece underneath it and they tended to vibrate against one another. It was weird because I checked all the panels with the hatch open and didn't notice anything, but one day while the car was idle I heard it, jumped back into the hatch and felt around and noticed it. It had been driving me CRAZY!!! I practically wanted to throw the car out. Anyway, I pulled off that rear hatch door trim piece (about 13 push fasteners that you can just pry off) and then got a piece of foam and double side-taped it to the metal piece. That rattle disappeared. There are still a few minor, soft rattles that occur over bumps sometimes, but once again, I think it has to do with pieces under the rear hatch door trim pieces. One day I'll tear all 4 pieces off and insulate them.

I misspoke when I said "gas cap". Its important to know its not the gas cap, but a little mechanism inside the interior panel that locks the gas cover.

The only way to check it is to take the interior panels off on the inside, behind the gas cover, and you will see the mechanism. So it will be the back corner interior panel in the hatch on the passenger side. Thats why I said I had been too lazy to verify it on mine.

Rattles, rattles, rattles!!!
 

Yes, I was the one who identified the rattling gas cover locking mechanism.

Well it turns out there are more rattles. Nothing drives me more freaking nuts than these freaking rattles!!!

Alright, so I took care of the locking mechanism. More rattles started. Back to my original suspicion that it was something in the hatch. It had quieted down during the cold weather, but now that it's warmed up again, the rattles have come back with a vengeance. Here's what I've been able to identify.

1. Hatch..as others have described, remove the hatch covers. You have to pop open the covers on the hooks where the retractable cover attaches to gain access to the 10mm bolts holding these clips in place. You must remove the clips before you can pop off the plastic covers. Near the back (near the brake light) of the hatch, you will find two square boxes..one on each side. Both are different sizes, but attached the same way to the hatch (10mm bolt). I have no idea what they do, but my guess is something to do with the defroster. Unscrew the bastards and put a piece of foam tape (I used double sided heat resistant foam tape and only removed on side. I stuck this to the hatch, so the metal box rests on top of the non-sticky cover.

2. Next, the wiring throughout the hatch has the plastic sleeve that can rattle if squashed at all. I retaped and secured it to the hatch in a few more places than what the manufacturer did. All of the wiring under the spare and throughout the car are in the same plastic sleeve.

3. Headliner directly behind the dome light controls. I haven't tackled this one yet as I'm still trying to figure out what the best approach for insulating it would be. I was thinking of using filter floss and tucking between the liner and roof panel. As long as there's no electrical wiring, I think this will work.

So after reassembling, the noise coming from the hatch was greatly reduced. (almost tollerable) I believe the remaining noise must be coming from the plastic sleeve surrounding the wiring in the hatch or the clips which hold the wiring to the car. I will work on this over the weekend.

When I filled out the JD Powers survey, I reamed them on the rattles. My comments were exactly what was said in an earlier post. A nearly $40K car shouldn't rattle.

The thing that really burns me is I bought my wife an EX35. The damn thing has a rattle that's been driving her crazy. She usually doesn't even notice rattles. I drive down the road slamming the dashboard or hitting the glove box and she thinks I'm nuts. Infiniti has an add showing these idiots with stethoscopes listening for rattles so they can eliminate them. Clearly the guys with the stethoscopes are deaf. I'm beginning to wonder if Nissan/Infiniti are just prone to rattles.

This has been so significant for me that I'm considering never buying a Nissan/Infiniti product again, which is a shame because every other aspect of both cars are excellent.

-ZCarGo-

damn, making me think twice about buying a Z...

No rattles in my car yet. Maybe on the touring model line they forgot to tighten a few things.

Like I said, everything else about the car is awesome. It's the only car I've ever had that people have given me the thumbs up. It's a very cool car and great performance. It just so happens that after reliability, rattles are my number one peeve. :mad:

-ZCarGo-

It is really not that serious. Don't be discouraged.

It's serious if you have one like ours which drive you nuts. It makes me hate the car at times... makes me really wish I never bought the effing thing.

I am going to rip this POS apart this weekend and see if I can fix anything.

It's safe to say that right now I HATE my car.

To think I chose this car over the Cayman S. It makes me wonder now if that extra $20k or so would have been worth it!!!

If I had rattles, I'd be pissed too. The reason I bought a new car was so I didn't have to listen to that. That was also one of the main reasons I didn't buy a Lotus - they've always been bad. I was thinking of having a car stereo place just felt tape all the panel seams, just because squeaks and rattles drive me so nuts.

I thought I was getting squeaking the other day, but it was only that a passenger had put the seat all the way back, so it was squeaking against the rear shelf.

Thanks to you guys for hunting these down. If I get any, I'll make sure to post the fix. Dash rattles are the worst.

As I wrote above, I do believe a lot of rattles from hatch area are from underneath the hatch panels (both in the back, and on the hatch door around the rear window. I'm heading to Home Depot tonight to buy a ton of high density closed foam weatherstripping tape and covering any possible contact areas underneath the panels and also duct taping all wires securely. Crossing my fingers all issues are gone. Now to just fix my loose driver's seat.....

As long as you're capable of taking this car apart to seek and destroy the rattles, it's not that bad. I'm just pissed that I spent nearly $40K and I have to seek out rattles. This is a warranty repair I could ask the dealer to fix, but I just don't trust anyone else messing around inside my cars.

My 09 Acura TSX had a vibration rattle in the spedo between 60 and 70mph. Couldn't get at that one so my solution was drive 70+MPH everywhere. It was just teasing me..day after day. First thing in the morning and then all the way home..buzz buzz buzz. I often thought of driving off a cliff..good thing there are no cliffs in FL!

Thankfully, niether of my cars have spedo rattles.

-ZCarGo-

Yeah, the problem with dealers is that they have very selective hearing and almost NEVER hear the rattles that you do. Unless you're riding with them on a test drive and can point it out to them, they probably won't ever fix a damn thing.

I think we've got to go like ZCarGo and fix the stuff ourselves.

BTW, my Mustang has rattles galore. I never bothered to fix them, but they are annoying as all hell. A little (well a lot) music usually solves the problem! :)

None here, just rolled 400 miles, you guys are not driving on log roads are you? Ha ha. No i'd be pissed too, my truck is my rattle trap not the z.

I had the same rattles on mine, one in the front passenger dash where the speaker is and the other from the hatch. I brought it back to the dealer and asked them to fix them. They ultimately tightened a bolt in the hatch and something else that was causing the rattle by the speaker and it's much better now but I do still hear some rattles from the hatch. I am in total agreement that a $40k car shouldn't rattle 2 weeks after buying it!

Just curious why noone else has gone back to the dealer to make it their problem?


---just read a couple more posts about this, I think Jakoye is right, the dealer mechanics have selective hearing and often don't fix the root problem. I just had the 2 rattles fixed so I'll wait and see if they come back.

Just have the dealer figure it out and save yourself the headache. The service manual has a whole section on diagnosing rattles.

I plan on taking it apart this weekend while I install my short-throw shifter. I'm going to take the hatch apart and see what I can do.

I understand, there were times I wanted to drive my g35 right intoa wall!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Folks, the Porsche Cayman had a similar issue in their rear hatches as you would drive over irregularities and hear a thud.

That wouldn't bother me near as much as a consistent, high pitched, metal-on-metal noise that comes from various places in the Z. By consistent, I mean it rattles for 100% of the hour it takes me to get home from work. If the stock market doesn't make me want to drive off a cliff at times, this noise does.

I found that sometimes the passenger seat belt knocks around. My Miata came with a place on the set to "tuck" the metal part of the buckle so it would not move around.

Stupid rear hatch rattle with the exhaust is so annoying.

Can you tell me more about this?

No problems here...maybe Chicane Yellow is exempt from rattle installation at the factory. :stirthepot:

BTW, I just hit 2500 miles and drive on some washboard roads almost every day...damn streets suck in Tucson. :bump:

Mine just started making a "low level, low frequency" rattle/rubbing type sound a few days ago, approximately 2000 miles on vehicle. Sounds like the passanger door or passenger side of the dash. It's annoying, can't isolate it.

John

So it appears that I solved my rear hatch rattle issue (keeping fingers crossed). Since I got the car I have had an annoying rattle/creak coming from the rear hatch. I initially thought it had something to do with the rear passenger taillight, but ruled that out. I tore apart all the trim in the back, and still that didn't solve the problem. Then one day I noticed that underneath the trim on the rear hatch door, there was some rubbing.

I tore off that rear hatch trim piece and glued a piece of foam to the metal "square" piece under the trim. That solved it for the time being. But shortly thereafter, more rattles appeared and I couldn't place the problem. I tore off all the trim pieces on the rear hatch door hoping that I could isolate the problem. Oddly, even with all the trim pieces removed the noise was still there and even worse! So I realized it wasn't the trim rubbing on anything. Poking around I discovered that the rear piece of aluminum (right around the area where the hood hook was, seemed quite pliable. the aluminum wasn't sturdy and if it flexed at all, made a noise. I also noticed that the rear brake light was slightly loose and that these two pieces that connected to it that went into the hatch door moved and made noise.

To solve the problem, I covered part of that rear hatch door aluminum with Dynamat. In addition I stuck pieces of foam weatherstripping tape on places on the hatch that might come into contact with the trim (buy this at home depot). In addition, I tightened all the 10mm bolts on the underside of the hatch.

So far, I have not heard anymore rattles from that area! I still have a ton of Dynamat left so if any more start appearing I'm just gonna cover the whole damn car!!! Now if only Dynamat could quickly fix my loose driver's seat problem......

I hunted a rattle/squeak back there for about three weeks, it was driving me absolutely crazy. It wound up being the tail brake light - tightening the nut (near that suspended weight) finally stopped the squeaking. But I had to tighten it 3x, until it almost seemed like it was going to break the plastic, before the squeak finally stopped.

[QUOTE=khtso;87667
So far, I have not heard anymore rattles from that area! I still have a ton of Dynamat left so if any more start appearing I'm just gonna cover the whole damn car!!! Now if only Dynamat could quickly fix my loose driver's seat problem......[/QUOTE]

there's a thread about the seat click issue if that's what you're talking about...someone figured out a fix for it

Easy solution - turn up the radio.

Buy one! :)

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-

That might be the first U2 allusion in this forum.

In that spirit, as far as your purchase of a Z goes, I will follow! :)

Good job on tracking down these rattles. Hopefully it won't happen to me, but I'll know which thread to reference if it does. :tup:

i dont know about rattling but i hear this annoying squeak from the back of the car when i drive

i had that too. but solved. go to the trunk and lift up the padding and cover and tighten the spare tire. mine was loose and after that the noise was gone.