Hi everyone. This is my second Maxima -- a 2003 GLE currently just shy of 69,000 miles. Got a great deal on it, and the car is in immaculate condition. Clearly being an almost 17 year old car I didnt expect it to come without any issues. I performed a bunch of searches, played with the words in search and didnt read anything specific to my symptoms. The car drives fine, pulls hard, shifts smoothly and all that jazz. The one issue I'm noticing (and not sure how big a deal) is that when I shift into Reverse or Drive, the car has a metal rattle that lasts until I begin rolling, but doesn't increase or remain when coasting, however upon approaching a stop the rattle comes back. When placing the car into Neutral or Park it doesn't rattle much -- Neutral no rattles, but Park when idling at times it will rattle intermittently. I'm curious if this could be linked to transmission or motor mounts? I've read many posts that seem to point towards a tensioner guide also being a culprit, but don't think that could be the case here since it's very specific to when going into gear. When idling in Drive the car also has this rattle intermittently. Nothing noticeable otherwise. I bought the car from the original owner a month ago, and inside the driver's side vanity mirror was a sticker for the oil change they had performed just before giving me the car @ 68,200 miles in case anyone was going to take a stab at this piece

Thanks in advance for your time and help! Happy to be back in a Maxima (a 5.5 gen now)!!

 

Completely different car, but on my Cadenza I had added a strut tower bar with no issues. But a few months later the dealership talked me into an induction cleaning, and not long after that it developed the same kind of odd rattle, only in reverse, sometimes in drive, when not moving. I didn't know what it was. Turns out there were a few suction lines at the back of the engine bay near the strut bar, the guys when they removed then reinstalled the hose clamps (torsion clamps) the little ears were coming in contact with the bar. Rotated the clamps around and just like that, sound gone.

Not saying this will solve your problem, but to point out that sometimes the last thing done to the car will point you in at least a close proximity. Other than that, I'd venture there's probably a heat shield loose. I recall on the 07 Max had to fix that one time. Was under the car as I recall.

 

Have you checked heat shield over exhaust pipe? The brackets sometimes rust off and rattle against the pipe. Possible that when you shift gears, you do shift the exhaust pipe a bit.

 

Yeah, I can pretty much guarantee it's a heat shield. There's just enough vibration at idle in gear to do it. Any increase in rpm makes the VQ silky smooth and it'll go away (except around 2,500 rpm, that's a nice resonant freq for rattling the exhaust).

 

Thanks for the replies guys. I also thought about that and ran it by a friend of mine. I recall on my 01 I had the same thing pop up, so I had it taken off and just left it off. No more rattles that way lol