Rattle

[Martin J]

Over the last few thousand miles my NX has developed an annoying chattering-type rattle from somewhere low on the passenger side. At first I thought it was coming from underneath the car, and I noticed that the plastic moulding intended to smooth the airflow under the body is not very securely located, and suspected that. But it turned out to be the plastic cover for the lower front passenger seatbelt mounting, which had enough freedom of movement to knock against the B-pillar trim. Some felt applied to the B-pillar trim has eliminated it. No idea why (i) it should wait until 25K miles to appear, or (ii) why the driver's side doesn't do it.   PS sorry to start a thread - I thought there'd been a general NX rattles thread but couldn't find it. Perhaps there haven't been enough rattles.

[SRR16]

Thanks Martin, I have been bothered by this same rattle for the last few months but was unable to get to the bottom of it. Similar to you, it mysteriously appeared when the car was about two years old. I thought it might be the front passenger seat, but couldn't pin it down. Your fix has worked a treat on my car, so thanks for the detective work. Now I only have the rattle from the drivers-side rear luggage area left to figure out...

[Martin J]

Hope Steven's rattle has stayed away, but mine turned out to be two. After eliminating the seat belt mounting cover rattle, a residual chattering noise turned out to be the passenger-side plastic underbody tray I'd suspected originally. It's not very securely located on the passenger side, with just a single clip which seems to have loosened. At low speeds on rough roads it generates a noise by bouncing against the floor plan, and at higher speeds even on smooth roads it's probably moving due to aerodynamic forces on the leading edge. I was reluctant to attach any other fastener which might damage the undercoating, but some double sided tape just behind the leading edge has eliminated it completely. And amazingly, it's stayed stuck during a recent 2500 mile trip to Italy and back.  This strikes me as something of a design flaw - would be interested to know if post-facelift cars have some play in this undertray. Anyway, Lexus-like silence now resumed.

choose files... Click to choose files