Folks,

I have been fighting a "rattle" for over the past year and I finally found it. I tried everything to find this annoying noise (e.g. removed RSTB, tightened trunk latch, dynamat in trunk and behind rear seats,...). Nothing worked until last night.

Turns out that when you take out the back seat, first take out the bottom section (2 simple latches allows the seat to be removed) then the part of the seat that you rest your back on. Once you have these removed (approx. 5 minutes), you'll see 4 bolts on the right of the seat and 4 bolts on the left side of the seat. These bolts hold the seat frame to the chassis. Whenever the car flexes, some of these 8 bolts rattle against the chassis. That is, there is metal-on-metal contact that is absolutely annoying anytime the car is moving and flexing. After taking off every bolt from the seat frame, the noise stopped. So I knew I nailed it.

To fix it, I just cut some heavy duty rubber material in 2 inch squares and poked a hole in the center. I then used these 2-inch square pieces as "isolators" between the metal seat frame and the metal chassis. Putting in all 8 bolts with this "isolator" did the trick. Noise is gone and I can finally drive my car w/o my radio on to silence the rattle.

Any questions, just email me at petemoe@nc.rr.com.

 

Hmm..this might be the source of my noise too. I might drive around few days without rear seat. Then again, my noise is more of a squeak than "rattle"