I've had a strange 'grinding' type rattle from my passenger-rear area. Having searched TSB's and threads here I thought it was either the suicide door window latch (TSB) or a loose air bag. It's a steady, albeit fairly minor, 'Morse code' type rattle and of course more noticeable at slower speeds.

As my warranty is up next March I'm more attuned to resolving any nagging issues sooner rather than later, although I will admit to dismissing this as a minor annoyance for a long time now.

Well, I had some time this morning so I stopped by my dealership (O'Hara). I took the technician for a test drive and he localized it pretty much as I did. After some time back in the garage he indicated that the back window was not properly seated in the passenger rear lower corner and therefore stress-rubbing on the sill (the 'grinding' I mentioned).

The service manager believes the glass wasn't installed properly at the factory in the first place and has put a warranty call into Mazda corporate. He was actually surprised it hadn't cracked. He's pretty sure they'll cover a re-seating, even if it means replacing the glass.

Morale of the story is not to dismiss rattles, even if relatively minor.

 

Going to dealer tomorrow for an approved in-warranty rear window reseating (or replacement if necessary). We shall see (hear) .....

 

Just to close the loop on this thread (despite no interest); my rear window was reseated with a new OEM gasket kit and voila, no more rattle. Apparently one of the plastic alignment blocks on the bottom wasn't removed in the factory and the glass was chaffing on this producing the rattle. Performed in-warranty and O'Hara Mazda in Fairhaven, MA even gave me a new Mazda6 as a loaner for the day.

 

was the rattle only making nosie when you were going high speeds? 40 and up mph??

Im having the same issue and its annoying.

 

Mine was more noticeable 15 - 45 mph. At higher speeds either the relative wind pressure and/or road noise canceled it out.

But don't procrastinate as I did. Have the dealer take a look/listen. Again, the morale to my story is that you don't have to live with these irritations, even if minor.