May have fixed door rattle!

[nramsey]

It aint the prettiest fix, but I think it works so far. Like many owners I had a very annoying "tick tick, tick tick tick, tick tick" noise in my driver side door when driving along. It didn't only happen on bumps and was very annoying. Happened most often when the moonroof was open, or when turning left. If I put even the smallest pressure on the door panel it would stop.

Spent today trying to track it down. I thought I had found it twice, one with a piece of the backing making a noise when I pressed it, and another when I found one of the plastic locating pins to make a noise when I moved it. I stopped both, but the noise remained! Then I got fed up. I thought that perhaps the noise was the two styrofoam pads touching the plastic water barrier. So I took a detailing towel I had laying around and layed it over those pieces on the inside of the door panel. Put the door panel on and the pressure kept it in place. Buttoned it back and and took a test drive. I think it's gone! I am going to take a longer drive tonight to be sure.

Here is a picture of the location I placed the towel on the back of the door panel.

 

[nramsey]

Turns out that didn't fix the problem, but it did make it less severe. I spent some more time trying stuff and I do not think it is something internal to the door. I believe it is either the door panel touching something, the door jam plastic trim which covers the seatbelt reel between the front and rear doors (I was able to make this make the exact sound, but haven't figured a way to try a fix yet) or some combination.

GRRR....

 

[cmack98]

How hard was it to take the door panel off? I want to do something with the fabric part of the door panel, but I wasn't sure about going about it....By the looks of your picture, it looks as if the fabric part of the door panel is just screwed in....wich would make my job easy to do...

But if its like one big jigsaw puzzle getting the panel off and on....then I might just leave it alone..

 

[nramsey]

Getting it off is pretty easy. I can do it in less than 3 minutes now.

1) Remove tweeter assembly (on 2002.5 models). Just grab the housing and pull off. Unclip wiring harness.
2) Remove screw from front of inside handle. Pull on front part of handle and twist up...pull front part out to remove.
3) Undo the two screws under the handle
4) Pop up cap on screw on front portion of door panel, and remove screw
5) Remove screw from door latch release handle area
6) Remove clip from rear face of door panel on the end
7) Run hands around the front, side and rear of the panel and pull our to release the clips holding the panel to the door.
8) Lift panel up. Pull the latch release cup out toward the inside of the car and rotate the door panel so the front end is down toward the ground. Push latch cup through the opening in the panel
9) Remove lock, mirror and window wiring harnesses from the switches

Done.