sanek469

I started having rattles in my dash on my 07 gs 350 awd. I think I have rattles in the doors as well, but until they fix the dash I can't really tell, because dash is so load, it sounds like its gonna fall out. I have another noise coming from somewhere in the center console area, but its not rattling, it's more like a sound a screw would be making if it's put on a vibrating metal plate or something. So I took mine in, they said they insulated everything, the cause on the receipt says "Excessive clearance". Does anybody know what that means?
I got the car back, and unfortunately I still have rattles. So I'm taking my car back this week, and the service rep said he'll have a technician go for a test drive with me. He said that they'll do everything to fix it once and forever, so I'm hoping they can it right this time.
Oh and by the way, after the first repair they did, i think they forgot to tighten something up around the center vents, because whenever I go over a bump there is something that just hits the dash from the inside.

skim07

I just picked up a 06 gs300awd and all the rattles are driving me nuts. doors/speaker area and windshield/dash is the loudests. no warranty so having the dealer fix this is out of the question. any DIY for door rattles and sqeaks?

BinaryJay

Get some foam and just start cramming it in every place you can find that you can cram it into. I found an old credit card to be a great tool for foam stuffing even the tightest places.

skim07

is there anything I can do about door/speaker rattle? I read that speaker bracket is the cause for door rattle. Its coming from both driver side and passenger side doors. I can remove the door but I couldn't find any info on how to remedy the rattle.

As for the dash, I will try the foam. What type of foam do you suggest? Should I just stuff them between the windshield and the dash? also does cutting the plastic windshield bracket under the hood help the squeaking?


***Never mind. I searched the forum all day and found various DIY threads. Looks like I have a lot to do this weekend. sigh.

pdwilkersn

I managed to do the dash speaker and cowl rattle myself on my 2006 GS430. I doubled up two old gift cards together to pry off the speaker grills. The dash speakers are held in with two bolts. Two of the three speakers had a connector piece separated from the main body. Looks like Lexus used double back foam tape to hold them together. I just taped it all up together. Then I put hockey stick tape all around the edges of the speaker grill and shoved felt between the dash and windshield at the corners. If in double just shove in more felt or foam. Stick on felt too.
For the cowl squeak, the pictures on the forum only show the right side pin you need to cut off but not all the stuff you have to remove to get to it. The left side pin doesn't touch anything.
I had to remove the in this order;
1 Radiator plastic cover
2 both shock tower covers
3 Cowl cover end pieces
4 use needle nose pliers to squeeze the weather strip retainers on both ends of the cowl to separate it from the fender weatherstripping.
5 remove the windshield wiper arms
6 pull up the side fender weather stripping enough to get to the two plastic cowl retainers at each end. First need to push down and away to unclip these from the fenders at the very end near the windshield
7 finally remove the cowl plastic. Just pull up and out
This all was the easy part. The retainer buttons come off easy.
Took me 15 mins of sawing with a hacksaw blade to cut it because of limited movement. But no more cowl squeak.

ptrinh

Hi pdwilersn,
Does your car still have noise around the front corner speaker area? I just bought a used lexus 2007 gs350 and there are some crackling noises around that area. I live in the bay area.

Pete

pdwilkersn

Well some went away but not all . Turns out the plastic cowl under the wipers creaks against the windshield. I removed it and put sticky back felt on the retainer clips and ran black cloth hockey tape alone every edge that contacts the windshield . As for the speakers you may have to wrap the speaker wires in sticky felt too. Other things I found, is the latch on the glove box rattles. Put felt in the latch hole. Took non stick felt and using a thin old credit card, forced it in the cracks between the vinyl dash and radio unit. Also shoved felt between the silver frame of the display and th black plastic part of the radio unit. Finally cut about 3 inches of black dress socks, rolled them up and jammed them between the dash and windshield . Still yet another dash creak. The black plastic instrument bezel. You can just pull it out part way without disconnecting the harness and cut small strips of black electrical tape into the square retainer holes. My dash is finally quiet.
I still have some non dash related rattles that I haven't figure out what the source is. Some times I think it's the door or the seat belt mechanism or the passenger seat. But these only appear when hitting large bumps so I haven't dove into those yet

Sparza1

My 07 GS 350 with 53,000 miles is driving me crazy with dash rattles and is out of warranty. Has anyone had to pay out of pocket for these repairs? If so, how much? Since DIY is probably going to be my only option does anyone have any pictures of what it looks like after applying material between windshield and dash?

Thanks

pdwilkersn

If you have a black dash and use rolled up black felt or pieces of black dress socks, you won't see it at all if you don't use too much. That crevice is deep. Stuff it down each side next to the defroster vents. Again though, I found the outside plastic cowl piece was the main source on mine.

Sparza1

Thank you, I will give that a shot.

soonerlaw1

We went thru this and because it was 400 miles of warranty left. We began a lengthy process. After 8,000 more miles /7 appointments SERVICE had to cover ours because it was prior to the warranty being over

Here is our check list.
Do you have any complaint of squeaks rattles noise etc on anything prior to your warranty expiring?
If so, you must use that to get them to do the following
1 DEMAND NEW DASH CLIPS. (they have not been recalled officially but should be!)
They tried to charge us $600. We said no and showed them of our paperwork of the reported issueS of weird rattles, noisy, squeaky etc prior to warranty expiring.
2 Tell them you want the entire dash, behind stereo, anything with open space FILLED WITH INSULLATION! We even have it down in our doors!
3. Make sure your cam shaft gear is stable and not moving. That was sending movement up thru our dash.
4. Tires. If you don't have smooth tires, it makes all that even worse
Kumho Ecsta LX Platinum (tried Michelin, Bridgestone, continental).
This Kumho IS THE MOST AHHMAZING QUIET TIRE. ALL MY ISSUES SOLVED.

I LOVE LEXUS. THE LOOK ETC. BUT THE RATTLES ABOUT BROKE MY SANITY AS I SPEND WELL OVER 2 hours a day in my car.

NOW IT'S ALL SMOOTH AND THE WAY IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE
I hate it that it took all this but the end result was it did work!

Ps. Our friend said "it's a nationwide issue from 20006- 2010" with these dash clips
Rattles behind stereos and instability by cam shaft gears. So when or if you hear a service rep at Lexus reply "really? Wow?!! That's just not Lexus character" etc. STAY on them.
Rattle to them as often as your car rattles at you.
We insisted the service manager go driving with us.
NOW. MY CAR IS THE LEXUS I KNEW I PAID FOR. GOOD LUCK

soonerlaw1

We went thru this and because it was 400 miles of warranty left. We began a lengthy process. After 8,000 more miles /7 appointments SERVICE had to cover ours because it was prior to the warranty being over

Here is our check list.
Do you have any complaint of squeaks rattles noise etc on anything prior to your warranty expiring?
If so, you must use that to get them to do the following
1 DEMAND NEW DASH CLIPS. (they have not been recalled officially but should be!)
They tried to charge us $600. We said no and showed them of our paperwork of the reported issueS of weird rattles, noisy, squeaky etc prior to warranty expiring.
2 Tell them you want the entire dash, behind stereo, anything with open space FILLED WITH INSULLATION! We even have it down in our doors!
3. Make sure your cam shaft gear is stable and not moving. That was sending movement up thru our dash.
4. Tires. If you don't have smooth tires, it makes all that even worse
Kumho Ecsta LX Platinum (tried Michelin, Bridgestone, continental).
This Kumho IS THE MOST AHHMAZING QUIET TIRE. ALL MY ISSUES SOLVED.

I LOVE LEXUS. THE LOOK ETC. BUT THE RATTLES ABOUT BROKE MY SANITY AS I SPEND WELL OVER 2 hours a day in my car.

NOW IT'S ALL SMOOTH AND THE WAY IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE
I hate it that it took all this but the end result was it did work!

Ps. Our friend said "it's a nationwide issue from 20006- 2010" with these dash clips
Rattles behind stereos and instability by cam shaft gears. So when or if you hear a service rep at Lexus reply "really? Wow?!! That's just not Lexus character" etc. STAY on them.
Rattle to them as often as your car rattles at you.
We insisted the service manager go driving with us.
NOW. MY CAR IS THE LEXUS I KNEW I PAID FOR. GOOD LUCK

soonerlaw1

Wow. I just texted your list of tapes and sticky felt. Great ideas. I feel we are def finally at 95%quieter but at random, I think some of the things you have found and done could get me at 100% quiet!!!

Here is what we had to do:

We went thru this and because it was 400 miles of warranty left. We began a lengthy process. After 8,000 more miles /7 appointments SERVICE had to cover ours because it was prior to the warranty being over

Here is our check list.
Do you have any complaint of squeaks rattles noise etc on anything prior to your warranty expiring?
If so, you must use that to get them to do the following
1 DEMAND NEW DASH CLIPS. (they have not been recalled officially but should be!)
They tried to charge us $600. We said no and showed them of our paperwork of the reported issueS of weird rattles, noisy, squeaky etc prior to warranty expiring.
2 Tell them you want the entire dash, behind stereo, anything with open space FILLED WITH INSULLATION! We even have it down in our doors!
3. Make sure your cam shaft gear is stable and not moving. That was sending movement up thru our dash.
4. Tires. If you don't have smooth tires, it makes all that even worse
Kumho Ecsta LX Platinum (tried Michelin, Bridgestone, continental).
This Kumho IS THE MOST AHHMAZING QUIET TIRE. ALL MY ISSUES SOLVED.

I LOVE LEXUS. THE LOOK ETC. BUT THE RATTLES ABOUT BROKE MY SANITY AS I SPEND WELL OVER 2 hours a day in my car.

NOW IT'S ALL SMOOTH AND THE WAY IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE
I hate it that it took all this but the end result was it did work!

Ps. Our friend said "it's a nationwide issue from 20006- 2010" with these dash clips
Rattles behind stereos and instability by cam shaft gears. So when or if you hear a service rep at Lexus reply "really? Wow?!! That's just not Lexus character" etc. STAY on them.
Rattle to them as often as your car rattles at you.
We insisted the service manager go driving with us.
NOW. MY CAR IS THE LEXUS I KNEW I PAID FOR. GOOD LUCK

pdwilkersn

The cam gear was news to me. I've read on the forums the some folks were having the dash clips replaced every year while under warranty. For those of us who are out of warranty, I read it's a 8 to 10 hr job. With dealer quotes as high as $2500. Also, I wonder it you have the dealer do it out of warranty do you have to pay for parts that break while removing or even ruining the dash? I've read of ruined dashes, AC ducts and broken windshields with the warranty jobs. I have Michelin Pilot sport PS2's they are fantastic tires if you ignore the treadwear.

Remember the old commercial where they run the car down the railroad tracks demonstrating how quiet the car was on the inside? I can only imagine what mine would sound like haha.

tbilisi79

You can imagine my mood when i flew in to Wisconsin, bought the car and drive back to NYC for 1000 miles or so, within the hour the dash was rattling and i was losing my mind.
But thanks to this site, I stuffed whatever I could find in between the defroster and the windshield and it worked. When we got home, I got some black felt and stuffed it on the right side and left side. Rattles are 90% gone. Its more like a creak than a rattle, so its not that bad, in fact it hardly bother me at all.
I must admit thou, my 92 Lincoln LSC has 0 rattles or creaks. I love the GS so much that this is a small annoyance I can put up with.