As Promised

Ok. So for the past month or so, I have been hearing this mysterious “hatch rattle” in my tC and it has been driving me nuts! So I came on the forum and looked for all the possible fixes and tried them all, but none of them worked. It was not a wire harness, it was not a loose taillight, it was not loose molding, or bump stops, or the latch mechanism, or the rear sunroof, or the spare tire, or the hatch struts. I thought, “Maybe it’s not even in the hatch.” So on Monday morning, I decided to gut the rear end of my car again. I decided to remove the roof liner by the rear dome light. First remove the two round clips.



Then unscrew the coat hanger clips. Push in the plastic and then pull it back. Then use a Philips head screwdriver or a 10mm socket to loosen the screw. Here’s the tricky part. There is a plastic “pin” that is clipped into the roof to keep the hangar from rotating. Use a thin screwdriver to unclip the pin.







Next, remove the molding on the rear where the hatch closes.



Unclip the Velcro from the edges of the roof liner, but be careful not to bend the liner or it will show a crease when you reinstall it. There are Velcro clips around the edges of the liner and one on each side under it, in the middle.



Now unclip the dome light by using a flathead screwdriver to depress the clips.



Pull the liner down so that you have a decent amount of room to work in at the sides.

Take notice of the plastic “ribs” that are there to keep the shape of the roof liner.



Give them a little tap, sound familiar? The ribs come loose after a little driving and make that dreadful noise. Put a little bit of thin foam tape between the ribs and the metal of the roof.



Problem solved! (It worked for me). And I haven’t heard the rattle for 200miles so far.

I hope this works for everyone!

Good luck!

PS.... I did this on BOTH sides

 

I don't think I've heard any rattle on the magnitude that you guys are talking about (how loud is it btw?). But I'm definitely going to keep this in mind.

Nice write up. You may want to submit this to the August DIY contest.

 

is that the driver side? mine is comming from the passenger side

 

I did it to both sides

 

Very nice write up.

I had the rattle for about a month and it progressively got worse. I scheduled an appointment with my dealer and a few days before I was to take it in, the rattle stopped. I always drive on the same roads: home to work, work to girl, girl to home. Had to cancel the appointment since I didnt want to look like an idiot after I made a bit of a fuss complaining about it.

ps. the only thing I changed was I installed some subs. I think initially it made the rattle worse but now the rattle is gone. weird.

 

i was trying to understand where in the car these pictures are, so to clear it up, it's above the rear side windows towards the hatch in the roof area?

and only foam on that one rib, the last rib towards the hatch? what about the others down the way? i understand both left and right, but what i meant was i saw foam on only one of the series of ribs (left side)

let me know.. i don't have the rattle, but in case it ever starts i know where to look! great work finding this!

 

The "ribs" in the picture are almost directly behind the coathanger clips you have to remove in the very first step.
I just did this on mine, so I'll share a couple of things I picked up:
Even if you're only working on one side, you really need to take down both sides of the head liner in order to get enough room to attach foam to the ribs. So since you're already taking down both sides, you might as well just put foam on both.
Before you begin, be sure to switch the rear dome light to "off". I neglected to do this, and let me tell you, the metal housing of the light heats up in a hurry (I have a blister on my finger now where I accidentally touched the light while pulling the head liner down).

I ended up only putting foam on the rib on the end of each segment. In rattling the pieces around, this appeared to be the only one in position to contact the metal pieces of the body. Hopefully that's enough, but we'll find out for sure when I head out to work tomorrow morning.

Thanks to Dachmo for taking the initiative on this one.... if this fix works for everyone, we're in good shape. Start to finish, both sides only took about 15 minutes. Now that I know what I'm doing, I could probably get it down to 10...

 

Great writeup and pics.

For the novice, this "fix" can cause some problems. So please be careful. I only did the rear passenger side. The first step with the round clip did not come out very easily and I broke off part of it. When taking off the rear side plastic part of the hatch, one of the plastic fastners came off and rolled down inside the car where I could not reach.

I did notice the rattle on the end plastic pieces and did put foam in. But I can hit all around the car and hear some type of rattle. I am hoping this might be the fix but after all the other "fixes" I am not too hopeful.

As stated, be VERY careful with the headliner as you can "crease" the headliner and when you go to put in back on, the crease remains. Luckily I took his advice and was very careful but I could see where this could upset people as now their tC might still have the rattle and then a nice crease in the headliner. I could not believe how many velcro pieces are with the headliner.

Please post whether this fix fixes your car.

Thanks.

Kevin

PS. I am taking my tC in on THU for the strut TSB. I know it is a waste but going to do anyway as it has taken 4 weeks to get struts.

 

sticky this please

 

So anyone else fix their rattle with this method?

 

Awesome! I will have to try it once I have time.

 

Sorry to say but it didn't work for me. My rattle is coming further back on the passenger side versus right above the back seat area. But the rattle is worse some days than others and I find that strange. Probably a waste of time but getting the TSB struts on tomorrow.

But from doing this fix in this thread, I could see where it might solve some rattles.

Kevin

 

FYI. those of us that have the side airbag package can not get to the ribs. they are behind the curtain airbag assembly and i would strongly suggest no one try to remove the airbag.

 

actually the more i look at it i think the ribs are only there on cars w/o the side airbags. which means my rattle is something else

 

Sorry this isn't working for everyone.... I still have no more rattles in my car though. I guess the list of possible fixes can be endless

If this works for anyone else, let me know.

- Dante

 

.how do you remove that molding in the rear where the hatch closes. ive been pulling on it and unscrewed the screw at the end, but no matter how i tug at it, the bottom of the molding doesnt seem to come out. any advice?

 

hrrrmmmm.... I dont know... I just gave it a good tug and it popped off at the top. as long as the part on the top comes loose enough for you to get the ceilinbg off that should be fine, the whole thing doesnt have to be removed although it makes it a little easier. If brute force doesn't work, I'd suggest getting a paint scraper type thing and padding it so it wont scratch...then use it to pry the molding off....carefully.

- Dante

 

good info

 

I had same problem. I could get the top to pop off but the bottom could not. But it was not needed as I was able to reach my arm in enough to see/feel the plastic piece which shapes the headliner.

Kevin

 

Ok, I did something similar to solve mine and went full tilt on it after work yesterday because on the commute it was absolutely maddening talking on the phone and hearing that cursed rattle.

I did the same procedure to get the headliner down and proceeded to reproduce the rattle. I can do it every time by putting opposing forces on each side of the hatch.

So, after everything was pulled off I made the rattle happen and I about freaked when I heard where it was coming from. For thelongest time I've been convinced it was the passenger side hinge. Nope, it's coming from farther forward from that.

Upon close investigation the bottom of the hinge is sandwiched between a upper and lower panel both made of metal. And my rattle is more metallic than plastic. I did see the plastic headliner shapers but with the headliner attached and secured I could not make the noise happen so I think the headliner on my car does a good job of snugging them up against the body.

Anyways, as I'm lying there on my back staring at the area the rattle is coming from I'm dumbfounded as this is a structural area and flexes a fair amount since our cars are essentially convertibles. Roof rigidity isn't that great in a tC but, that is the tradeoff for having the all glass roof.

Anyways, I think about things some more and decide to get out my 10mm deep socket and rachet and snug up the 4 bolts recessed deep into the upper hatch support. I said SNUG not tighten them down. I also snugged up anyother 10mm bolt I found in the area.

Immediately I could not reproduce the rattle anymore doing the same thing I've done for months. I then drove on the bumpiest highway around here to go see my GF and see why her car was running rough. (The 280 and the 87 to capitol expressway)

No rattles! And none this morning on the way to work. The real test will be going home as the rattle has always been at it's worst when the car was hot from the sun.

But, I'm hopeful because even opening the hatch I'd hear the rattle and I went out at lunch to check it and opened the hatch and didn't hear one.

Anyways, that's my expirence so far.

Search my posts and you'll see I've done just about everything imageinable to quell this noise.