Now Mr Car enthusiast is thinking of selling off our baby Honda.
BHPian MrsCarEnthusiast recently shared this with other enthusiasts:
My husband, Mr Car Enthusiast, has been suffering silently for many sleepless nights. The reason: our almost-four year old baby Honda has had a rattling sound for the past two weeks, which is difficult to localise and diagnose.
Usually, when my husband says something is wrong with the car, I dismiss it as a figment of his imagination. But, unfortunately, this noise is very much real. Even I agreed that I could hear it. But, we did not agree on where the sound came from. For me, it seemed to be arising from somewhere behind the AC and stereo, the front middle portion of the dashboard; whereas he insisted that it was coming from somewhere from the side of the driver’s seat door.
To prove his point, he tried stopping the car; opening and shutting the door again; and rejoiced when the noise stopped for twenty seconds. He had just started bragging about his discovery of the malfunctioning door, when the mischievous Baby started rattling again, thus, disproving his theory.
Well, now I’ve gotten used to the sound. Especially in Kerala’s rain, it is not really audible. But, nothing will console my Mr Car Enthusiast.
He shared this post with me. https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/india…ml#post4762858. And I agree, rattles seriously test our marriage.
Today, the car servicing guy also told him that the sound was coming from somewhere in the front ( agreeing with my observation; and not his right seat door theory). So, now my Mr Car Enthusiast is worried that maybe his ear also needs to be tested.
The car servicing guy also reiterated the same advise that Mr Car Enthusiast had read in 100 team bhp posts last week : it is difficult to diagnose such minor noises; and it is better to not do anything at present; and instead wait till the sound becomes bigger and more annoying; and finally, some actual problem arises.
His previous car, the ten-year old Tata Manza, had never disrupted his sleep so much. I mean, not that it didn’t have its own set of problems right from the day it was purchased: the window pane would get stuck midway (when it was raining outside); the AC would stop working (whenever it was hot outside); its engine once suddenly fell dead (to it’s credit, this happened right in front of a car repair shop). It was finally when the brake started misbehaving while going downhill steep roads (on one of our trips to Munnar), that we decided to let go of the Manza to make way for our new baby Honda.
But the Manza’s issues were always diagnosable; and so he could sleep in peace. On the other hand, the Baby Honda’s low decibel rattles have driven my hubby insane.
So, now Mr Car enthusiast is thinking of selling off our baby Honda.
A call for help to all wise team BHPians ( especially owners of Honda vehicles). If you have any experiences with such squeaky rattling noises, kindly enlighten us with your pearls of wisdom.
Here’s what GTO had to say on the matter:
Selling a car because of rattles is like divorcing someone because they are lactose-intolerant. This is especially the case on broken Indian roads where 90% of cars develop rattles with time. My high-end German cars have developed rattles, my two Jeeps rattle more than they make engine noise, I’ve driven brand-new media test-drive cars with 2000 km on the odometer and rattles.
A wise man once said “when you can’t change the world around you, change yourself”.
- Tell hubby to meditate. It will make him more tolerant of rattles, and life’s problems in general. Not sarcastic, I am being serious – meditation has changed my life (I started in the Covid years with the “Calm” app and am a daily user).
- Crank the music volume higher and drown out the rattles (my music is always loud).
- There are 20 solid solutions on the rattle threads of Team-BHP – tell hubby to read them.
- Find a good patient mechanic who will actually take the time out to remove rattles. Whenever my Hondas used to go to Sunil Shanbagh (Select Auto Works, Dadar), he used to remove rattles which I didn’t even complain about ! The man is a different breed.
Here’s what BHPian Blooming_Flower had to say on the matter:
Yes, it’s difficult to diagnose for any car. Buzz, squeak and rattles are some unique phenomena in NVH domain of the vehicle, which directly associate with the perception of the build-quality of the car, and have a great psychological impact on the drivers and passengers alike.
Because of the sporadic, random nature and wide variation these are often difficult to characterize by normal sound measurement procedures and metrics, and OEMs often resort to complex algorithms to map the quality of the sound/noise with ‘annoyance index’ metrics (for more detail Google is your friend). Your post specifically reflects on this subjective aspect.
However, a brand new car comes with tight tolerances at various mating surfaces of the panels (made of plastic, metal or anything else) along with optimum torquing of various fasteners. These make sure the car is rattle or squeak free. With passage of time, these tolerances get disturbed and rattles/squeaks start.
Few tips to narrow down the source and root cause:
- Park the car on a flat, empty place. Engage 1st/reverse gear, engage parking brake and sit inside the car (drivers/pax. seat). Ask your husband to shake the car by pushing it sidewise. Vary the shaking force and speed. Try to exercise your auditory skill to diagnose the nature of the rattle. It’s the intrinsic quality of our hearing organ to distinguish plastic to plastic, plastic to metal or metal to metal rattle. Move your head along the span of the dashboard towards both the front doors. Get seated on the rear seat and try to observe whether the intensity of the rattle is reduced. If yes, it’s coming from the front only. As the engine is off the other noise interference will be lesser and it’s easier to diagnose.
- Disengage the parking brake only, and ask to shake the car longitudinally. As the gear is engaged it will move an inch or two in fore-aft direction, not more. And repeat the same process of subjective observation.
- In case the similar rattle noise is not simulated, take the car to some bad patch of empty road where the noise is more prone to appear. Once on the patch at a certain speed, put it in neutral and kill the engine, let it roll with inertia for 100m or so and try to pin-point the source.
Caution: Do it in an empty patch, as killing the engine will harden the steering maneuver and brakes too will not work properly.
If possible, ask a trusted mechanic to do all these steps. But trust on your sensitive ears to gauge the noise (as the person once hears the rattle cannot unhear it easily).
Mostly, these comes from some dashboard parts. It’s quite common to observe rattles after refitment of dashboard in perfectly a healthy car so forth. Being made of mostly plastic and other softer materials along with plastic retainers clip and fasteners these have a tendency to go out of tolerance. Even a loosened nut on the scissor of the power window frame inside the door panel may turn the things nasty.
Good luck finding the root cause. Resolving it is much easier than finding the source!
Here’s what BHPian Chetan_Rao had to say on the matter:
I’m incapable of caring ‘slightly’ about things. I’m the all-in or all-out sort. Rattles, both ‘ghost’ and real, are one of those things.
I reached a point where I needed to decide whether agonising over any one thing was worth the mind-shagging it brought with it, and whether trying to fix it will actually make it better or worse (rattles fall squarely in this bucket). If yes, get rid of the issue or the cause. If not, get rid of the thought.
If I let my obsessive ‘must fix’ tendencies take charge, I’ll spiral out of control.
So now I ignore that slightly rumbling rattle from somewhere behind the steering column on my 1.5 year old Jimny, and tootle along. I’ll deal with it when it breaches the ‘must fix’ threshold.
Diagnostic drives?
*Shudders remembering late night drives to find rattles and squeaks because ‘you can’t hear it while there’s noise around, damn it!’*
Read BHPian comments for more insights and information.
