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My first concern with my car is a squeaking noise coming from the left hand part of the left windshield air vent.
As you may now, a big percentage of 3GSs came with infamous dashboard noises. At first, I had the dashboard rattling when going over bumps, and I believe I could move the dashboard back and forth by 1/4 of a cm. With some research, I solved the problem by putting some foam between the dashboard and the windshield, and the dashboard now appears to stay in place like a rock, and no more rattles.
BUT. I have one noise remaining, and unfortunately not an unnoticeable one, if you have the radio off especially. So it comes sometimes after 5 minutes, sometimes after half an hour, sometimes if I only drive an hour or less and on a well-maintained road it doesn't comme at all (but this is pretty rare). I also can't make it appear voluntarily, whatever I do with the dashboard as you can see at some moments of the video. Which can only make more difficult the diagnosis.
I tried to put more and more foam or felt between the windshield and the dashboard, it sometimes worked for a day or two but it came back after, despite not touching anything anymore. So the big question is: did someone experiment the same noise? Did you get rid of it and how? Or should I just expect to spend nearly $2,000 to replace the dashboard, with the risk of the noise coming back because I've seen that removing the dashboard could worsen the efficiency of the factory insulating materials?
Edit: you won't hear it if you listen to it with a good sound system. If you listen to it with your phone, this is exactly how much I hear it in the car (phone speakers make high pitched sounds more audible).
It's back. And my FM transmitter broke, so as I'm stuck with what's available on the radio, and I turn it off when there are ads, it's even more harassing than before. I have to either stand the ads or the creak, which is in fact I think more unbearable than some really unbearable ads. I just can't understand how a back-then $75,000 car, from a manufacturer known for its cabin build quality, can make this noise even older junky Renaults worth $500 today like my parents drove didn't.
Fortunately (or should I say "fortunately", I have nearly 0 hope it will solve my problem), I came across some posts talking about the windshield cowl, which if I'm not mistaken give access to the windshield clips, which are known to be among the possible sources of noise. I wouldn't necessarily replace them (I don't even know if it is possible without being a mechanic) but put some foam pads where I think it would be useful.
Originally Posted by 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.
Originally Posted by MX73
I already did the foam wedge trick.
Hmm. I think I found the root cause from another thread. Apparently, the windshield cowl is the issue. I took it out, drove around and no more squeaks and creaks. I modify the cowl a bit, put it back on and no more, for now. It's a warm and humid Christmas day in Texas...I guess I'll wait for a cold snap to see if my new mod works. Looks like someone already did the diy hacksaw prior to my ownership and gave up fixing the squeaks down the road.
I didn't realize the cowl dampens a lot of the engine noise. The DI and engine noise is more distinctive. I would have left the cowl off longer but it looks like it's going to rain here and the battery is exposed.
Well, off to another rattle in the rear....
It's getting in the 30s outside for a week or so again and I hate high temperatures so I'll try that later. I hope I don't need to saw anything because I don't have a dremel. The first post makes it look like a bit of a hassle to disassemble all of this, and if once all is apart, I don't find anything related to the noise, I might have a really bad day so I hope this is a serious track.
Despite how comfortable, beautiful and fast it is, I swear I might end up selling the car after replacing a few mandatory parts to attract buyers, if I don't manage to fix it. It's horrible.
I'm finally tackling this. However, I'm stuck at the retaining screws removal step. I keep unscrewing but the screw doesn't come off. I took a picture as accurately as I can of the other end of the screw. Is it normal or am I doing it wrong?
If you can slip a finger under that plastic screw to help lift it up while unscrew is the easy way. If there in a tight area a sharp pick gently pry the screw head up while unscrewing
I finally got it off. It is in fact a clip, so I pried the inside part up. It was a bit difficult nonetheless. Then I took it on a test drive and no more noise!
But there's a small problem: I can't reproduce any noise by touching either the windshield or the cowl. And I think the problem will return if I just put it back. It shouldn't rain this night (at least I hope) so I will wait before putting it back in case I have an idea.
OK, here's what I did: I analyzed what could rub against something nearby, and as the noise came from the left half from the driver's point of view, I thought the ridge located here may be a good candidate so I put some pieces of adhesive felt inside. I put it back and drove 60 km, with bumpy sections and blasting the stereo.
No noise came back. I don't know if I can cry victory now, but given how little it takes for it to appear, I think we're not far off!
06-02-20, 01:30 PM
2006 GS dashboard squeaking noise
