The car is now > 4 years old, with ~80k miles on it. Within the past 6 weeks, I have developed an obnoxious rattle from the rear of the car. It is nearly constant. On it's so constant and rapid that it can be mistaken for pop-corn in a microwave.

At first I thought it might be the bushings for the rear sway bar going out or hardening up, but I have determined that the noise is definitely internal to the car. I had ibelonginprison ride in the back of the car, and he said it's definitely coming from the rear deck. As best we can tell, it's either in the rear deck, or possibly in the trunk underneath the lining.

We can reproduce the noise when the car is turned off and stationary. If we manually shift the weight of the car fore/aft, it does not happen. However, if we shift the weight laterally, we can evoke the pop. When doing so, we can tell that the noise is not suspension related.

So... anybody else experience anything like this? Anybody have any pointers on exorcising such a noise?

 

You need 3 tools. 10 mm, 14mm socket and a flat head screwdriver. Revove the rear seats... real easy to do. The X- bracket behind the rear seats is loose. That's where you need the 10mm socket for. Just tighten all up... on a scale of 1 to 10, its a 3 to do this... very simple. Should be done in under a hour

 

Awesome. I'll attempt this sometime this week. Thanks for the tip.

 

No problem... PM me if you have any questions

 

I had the same issue..it was the cross-bracing (loose) behind the seats.

 

bump.

I can't get to the cross brace. There is some sort of foam liner behind the seats, secured via dark brown plastic rivets. I can't pop them out.

How do I remove the rivets?

 

Nevermind. Tightened a couple of bolts, overtorqued one of the bottom nuts, and sheared off a plastic stud. Then I found a black plastic pop-rivet that had fallen out of the passenger side border of the rear pass-through. Popped that back in. Going for a test drive.

 

Yeah... you should be fine... you solved the problem...

 

Let us know...

 

if that wasn’t the fix, look up the tsb for rear parcel shelf rattle... I just did a bunch of internet search and found lots of reference to it, but not the fix... I had the rattle several years ago and had it fixed from tsb, but forgot the details...

When I get home I can look it up easier.

Let us know If it’s fixed Trey

 

Oh the blessed silence. Comparatively at least.

It appears to have addressed the majority of the pops from the rear. I still encountered some muffled pops, but I'd say easily 90% are gone. I bet it was the cross brace like you guys suggested, though I know the black rivet that had worked itself lose was contributing some small amount.

One thing I learned on the test drive - what I thought was a minor exhaust leak appears to be more significant, and my already loud car is obnoxiously so with the rear seats removed.

Thanks again for the help guys.

 

Something to watch for, thanks for posting up Trey. You should have kept IBP in the trunk, though, LOL!

 

Oh, and can you believe it? While I was spelunking in my back seat attempting to remove the liner, I heard a crunch in my driveway. When I finally got out of the car, there was a blue camry parked lengthwise/perpendicular in my driveway, and my mailbox was on the ground.

The passenger got out of the car, ashen. He explained that he was out teaching his 15 year old daughter how to drive for the first time. Luckily, the mailbox is a plastic job and just came off the post, but the post is still secure. I should be able to re-bolt the plastic to the post[hopefully].

 

Women Drivers

lol jk glad you got the rattle figured out. I'll keep an eye out for this one.