Possible cause of rattle near sunroof/map light

[azhennac]

This is my first post... I have a Mazda3 4DR thats about 9MO old with 14K miles on it. I came on here looking for possible causes for a rattling noise coming from my sunroof and I noticed some people had heard it and didn't know what the cause of it was. I decided to take down the map light and try to see if I could see what the problem might be and I noticed that there is a screw completely loose. It looks like its one of the screws that mounts the sunroof motor or something... its kind of hard to tell because the opening where the map light once was isn't that big and things are pretty tight up there. I'm now debating whether I want to bring in my car to have it fixed or try to remove the headliner myself. I went to this site and from what it looks like I'd almost have to completely disassemble by interior. On the other hand if i bring it in i'd have some technician doing it that doesn't give a crap... Well anyways I just thought I'd share a possible cause for those of you who might be experiecing a similar noise in that area.

 

[Karma_hunden]

Do you hear the rattle while the car is moving or is it when it is parked as well?? If it is only when moving then it might be because the sunroof rubber (If not the rubber, something) might not be sealing well.

 

[three]

Idunno my sunroof went bad and they said it was because of a loose bolt. So they fixed it and it had been working fine then after bout 2000 more miles when i actually started hearing the rattle that you are talking of and i just got mad and pulled the headliner down and there was a bolt just chillin there on the top of the headliner so i took it back in and the same bolt had come loose again so they gobbed some locktight on it and works like a champ. Just kinda thump on the headliner where you hear the rattle and see if you can hear something bouncing around in there yours might be doing the same thing mine did.

 

[azhennac]

Yeah its definitely a loose bolt... I can feel the bolt after removing the lamp light assembly... I stopped by Mazda today and they said it would take about a day or two to take down the whole head liner to fix it. I think the tech mentioned something about putting some stuff on the screw so that it doesn't come loose again. I'll make sure to mention that when i bring it in.

 

[three]

Yeah i was gonna say that if your a hands on do it yourself type of guy you could have the headliner down in less than 20 minutes. I had my headliner down, reapholstered and put back in, in less than 2 hours while my dad was fixing some hail damage on the roof. But if you still have your warranty i would say go to mazda.