Can you guess the rattle from this audio clip?
 

Hello everyone,

It's my first post here. I'm from the Midlands in the UK.

Sorry to make my first post a plea for help but I have an issue with a rattle coming from deep below the area of the centre speaker from within the dashboard.

It sounds to my ears like plastic hitting plastic but a microphone recording picks it much clearer, and it sounds more metallic.

Someone on another forum said a broken spot weld in the firewall/bulkhead can cause this issue. I asked Mazda to check and they said it's ok but I'm not sure if they checked right, they didn't seem keen to look and the guy said he'd never faced this before.

Please have a listen and let me know your thoughts, it makes the noise as I just pass over raised road markings:

First occurrence at 6 secs, then 11-15 secs, then just a couple of very small ones as there are no more lumps to hit in road.
http://youtu.be/PsvbuiLWbvg

Many thanks

Happy 2012

it's really difficult to tell, without video.

Have you tried pulling your stereo and having a look?

Thanks for thequick reply.

I've stripped everything out, stereo, air vents and sat nav but it's underneath all that stuff, isn't the gearbox underneath there?

This is the image of the whereabouts of where it sounds like it comes from:

http://www.webdesignwolverhampton.co...entre_dash.jpg

having any trouble with heating or cooling?

No problems with the car in any other way that I've noticed. Mazda have checked it today, I'm not sure how thorough their examination is but they gave me thier inspection sheet and all was ticked ok.

sounds a bit like the hvac vent mixer flap thing

That's not surprising with such noises and rattles. The dealer won't do anything just tick everything as "OK" because it's tedious and time consuming to find the cause and nobody will want to waste time for such things except for the owner. The only chance to find the fix is if it's done by you. It was always like that.

I know the dealers won't fix rattles but I did ask them to specifically check the bulkhead weld but I doubt they did.
I may call the dealer which carried out the repair on the other 2 tom to see if there tech still works there who fixed the other 2.

'sounds a bit like the hvac vent mixer flap thing ' Where is this? Did I not strip this out?

try push your finger on the upper corners of the radio faceplate. mine was squeaking like that.

I've removed everything as in the image inc the radio. It still makes the noise plus I don't think that noise is plastic, it sounds like metal.

see attached

Thanks for that, where is this? how do I access it? Sorry for my ignorance.

oh um...

here just look through this http://foxed.ca/rx7manual/2003mazdar...161140W01.html

Isn't that a RX7? It's coming from the side of dash, it's the centre I think.

no its the rx8 manual

http://foxed.ca/rx7manual/2003mazdar..._S01_0684.html

Thanks for that but I can't possibly remove all that stuff like the steering wheel, coloumn and the whole dashboard.

I think it's something else anyway as it's not located where the noise is coming from.

next to it in the middle it the AC. it also has the flappy thing and actuators etc. its in the middle. look through that whole hvac section i linked to.

Removing all that stuff isn't an option for me. Does anyone have any other suggestions?
The only sure way I can think is to sell or swap the car.

turn the radio up

I've turned the radio up for over a year, I don't notice it then but I still want to fix it.

It could be the windscreen or the mount of the windscreen (others have had a rattle from here), I'm not sure where exactly the noise is coming from but for my next step, I'm going to get a mechanic to sit in the passenger seat whilst I drive and hopefully he can pin point it better close up.

Check your glove box. You might want to line it with some felt or light rubber. I keep all sorts of things in there that rattle around like crazy! LOL. I quiet them down with some rubber strips and and rags stuffed between noisy items. my REAL problem is a rattle from right rear side (quarter) (inside the car) when i hit sharp twisty bumps. It sounds like it may be the plastic covers over the rear speakers rubbing. I thought it was the same panels rubbing on the rear window so i stuffed some 1/2 inch round grey foam tubing in there and it happens again. Seems when the car is cold the sound goes away sometimes. I'm just hoping it;s not the rear windscreen getting loose when the body torques as I go over some rough patches. I live in NYC which has some crappy roads. I know its a sports car with really tight suspension, but this just started happening about a few months ago and it annoys the hell out of me. It.s not so much a rattle as a ticking sound, as if one panel of something might be twisting against another. I opened everything up from the back (trunk) and found no loose wires or anything else that could be hitting the body panels. Any ideas other then get used to it??! LOL
Thanks in advance.

Thanks.
J

UPDATE:

I gave it one last chance for repair by removing the passenger airbag + panel that covers a third of the dash (actually only a 15min, easy job). After now covering about 500 miles with the whole panel removed, the rattle is no more!

I just need to put it back in, and wedge small foams blocks into anywhere it can rattle and it all should be good. Worst case, I can get a new panel off ebay for £50.

Glad you solved the problem. End thread.