After driving my new sv for two months there was a very annoying rattle in the driver area. Just want to share this with everyone who may have the same problem. I discovered that the rattle was coming from the long piece of plastic board located next to the driver's right foot. For now I just folded a piece of cardboard and slipped it between the bottom of this board and the carpet floor to prevent it from flexing. Now I have to chase down two more rattles that aren't as annoying. There is one on the passenger side and only rattles on bigger bumps. And there is another one in the rear that sounds like the speaker is loose.

 

my car developed a second rattle from the passenger side. It is so high frequency, like a bee buzz. It is triggered only on expressway from the smallest cracks. Slower speeds rarely trigger it, and bigger potholes even less frequently. It doesn't fkkin matter - you may say. But if you get on a long road, it begins buzzing almost constantly. It makes me want to drive this ****in piece of junk into a post and put an end to this misery. Took to dealer twice. They gave me the run around first, but quickly realized I am mad as hell.
First dealer took off front passenger door panel and installed insulation and put it back in. This appeared to fix the problem for two days. Not a single buzz. Then something cracked it open, and it started buzzing no different than before. Second dealer said on test drive the noise comes from rear door actually. It is hard to locate, really, i tried myself. That dealer replaced the whole door panel. Didn't make a damn difference.
To me the buzz comes a little higher, from above where the front seat belt is suspended. I pried the fucckin ceiling board open and looked around. Saw nothing, but shoved a bunch of large foam chunks, just hoping by luck to kill the ****in vibration.
No luck. It's like its laughing at me.
Right now my girlfriend is driving the car. It doesn't bother her. She ordered a brand new Subaru Outback 2015 6-cyl. I am gona drive her car for as long as I can and then take a big hit and get rid of this junk ****.
I think I am done with Nissan.
in 5000 miles I have
bad wheel bearing
bad driver mirror
rocking driver seat
bad engine bearing
two nasty rattles, one of them undiscoverable.
Most issues have been known to Nissan for 5 years now. To me this show that this company does not give even a little ****. Had a max for 10 years before that and was sworn Nissan fan, have a corporate job and many cars to buy in front of me, and nissan managed to lose me forever.

 

yesterday i removed the panels of both front doors. wrapped all cables in paper towels and put that insulation seal ( from home depot rubber foam weatherseal) basically around the entire door and on all points of contact. On top of that left a thin microfiber towel inside, just to add some pressure so nothing is lose to rattle. Today I drove to Racine, WI to catch some king salmon, and Racine has some of the worst streets I have seen in US, and both front doors were super tight without a single noise of any kind.
Now I hear something really small in the rear doors, but I could not take the door panels out. Anyone have a link to a vid or instructions for removal? I tried the same procedure like front doors, but did not work and was afraid to force.

By the way, removing front door panel is so easy that you can literally take it off and put back on in just 5 mins.

 

Section INT page 21.

http://www.nicoclub.com/FSM/Maxima/2014%20Maxima/

 

so if I understand this correctly, #3 pries off, starting from the back. The rest is like the front door. Is that right? I tried small force but would not come off, and want to be sure before I use more force.

 

I have not taken the doors panels off so really can't answer your question.

 

The high-buzz sound that you are describing sounds like the front reading light/moon-roof assembly. This noise used to get very noticeable when the weather became colder on my Maxima. Maybe some plastic materials became more brittle or differential in material during colder weather induced the noise. Just pull the reading light/moon-roof assembly and drive to see if the noise goes away.

A word of caution: DO NOT TRY TO LOCATE THE ORIGIN OF THE NOISE OR PULL/TUG ON THE ASSEMBLY WHILE DRIVING...
(I've often found myself doing this and had to stop after noticing almost being driven off the road by trying to find the source of the random vibrational noise.)

 

I've done this while my gf was driving, and the noise was definitely from passenger door.

Had a different noise from the driver door, that was just a lose cable.

Now read driver door is.. squeaking.. don't know how to describe it..

 

I just found another possible source of rattling noise. The plastic shroud that covers the engine. If you check the upper left corner of the shroud it fits very loose and can easily cause noise by hitting on the metal bracket below it. This is even if the bolts holding the shroud are all properly secured. I would expect that the shroud fits this way on most if not all 7th Gens.

I added some foam rubber in that area to make sure it does not rattle. Another option is to trim the shroud a bit so it cannot make contact. I'm not sure if the noise is making it from the engine bay into the cabin but I think it's a good possibility.

 

I know exactly what your talking about. Luckily my engine cover is not rattling. I do have to chase a couple rattles though.....

 

Wow Nopike, thanks very much for this link.

 

You are welcome. Make a copy just in case they ever take it down. Having a copy of the the FSM is one of the reasons I bought another Maxima.

 

Coming from a 2009 Buick, man-oh-man is it great to have an active community in both aftermarket and also in owners that provides these tools.