Rattle battle

[Anonymous]

Well, so far so good with this great little car - except the bloomin rattle!

I've just got it back from Toyota having replaced the front brake discs and pads, replaced the front strut mounts and replaced the noisy tensioner. The car now drives "just right".

However, the mechanics could not fix the rattle which is very annoying. The mechanic reckoned it might be coming from the aitbag itself.

It sounds like a wire slapping against a metal panel, coming from the lower passenger side. My attempts so far have not worked either. I've padded out the air bag wire and it doesn't seem to be that. I've checked all of the screws I could find (including the sun visors). I've looked at the Toyota service bulletin covering rattles on 2000 model year cars.

Has anyone else got any ideas? What is the white cased wire in the passenger side wheel arch? Would a specialist audio company be more interested/more qualified to track down interior rattles?

I need to get this one fixed, because the car is so close to being a delight...

Ork

[Anonymous]

52 views and not a single suggestion? Oh well...I'll let you know if I find anything out that might help the rest of you.

[SimonC_Here]

If you read the sticky (Known Issues & Other FAQs)
 in the top of this forum it covers the airbag rattle and the possible cause of it. Along with lots of other information about common faults.


Have a great time with your car!

Simon

[Anonymous]

Thanks Simon - I had read all the references to rattles I could find through searching and stickies before I posted.

Consider me a new forum contributor who will now only post if there is something that hasn't been mentioned before - which perhaps explains why there are so few daily posts on this forum. There does seem to be a lot of people reading and very few contributing - I wonder why?

[SimonC_Here]

Only trying to be helpful, you commented that there was a lot of views and no posts, so I posted.

Sorry if I failed to read your post fully, I see now that you said you have looked at the post I pointed you to.

Good luck in finding your rattle.


Simon

[Anonymous]

I had a similar rattle; this solution did the trick for me:

Look in the far left hand side of the passenger dash near the corner of the windscreen -(where the tax disc is located) and you will see where the dash meets the plastic panel (the one that is underneath the windscreen). These two panels were striking and causing the rattle. I pushed some black cloth between the glass of the windscreen and the plastic, and that stopped the rattle. IE. The part of plastic that touched the glass, vertically under your tax disc. I hope that helps.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Mark, I will give this a go tonight and see if it works.

Last night I checked all of the wiring looms under the glovebox area and air vents and everything looked good and tight. Fingers crossed.

Cheers,
Ork

[Anonymous]

OK - rattle problem solved and it was unusual one - perhaps one to consider adding to the FAQ on rattles?

Turns out a spot weld joint in the sill area was loose due to body flex and this was causing the clicking/wire slapping sound. The solution was to fill the sill with wax. If this hadn't worked it would be necessary to take the sill off and pad with foam or reweld.

Apparantly, the Toyota bodyshop commented this is not an uncommon fault.

I'm glad the problem is fixed - having a rattle free MR2 elevates my enjoyment of the car no end. Long may the rattles stay at bay.

Right that's all - now I'm off to the Goodwood Revival - cheerio.

[Anonymous]

I'm glad you sorted the rattle out.

One question - where abouts on the car are you refering to, when you state 'the sill area'?

Cheers

[Anonymous]

Hello Mark,

The area of the rattle was passenger side low down where the door joins the sill area and the plastic kick plates are.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,
Simon.