Don’t enjoy driving my car like this

[BlackDTeggy]

Love driving this car, but right now I have a bad rattle. Took it to Acura who claimed my glovebox and cabin filter were on wrong causing the rattle. Like how the hell would those be on wrong? I feel like a monkey could install those, and I def didn’t notice anything off when changing mine. Anyway, that wasn’t it. I got my car back and it was still very much there.

It wasn’t making it on cold start when I left the dealer like it was before, so I thought they fixed it. Until it came back quickly on the highway. It seems to move around with rpm’s and just buzz at different times.

What do I do when the dealer won’t even care to fix it? They are also like a 50 minute drive away from me which is super irritating. They don’t want to help fix anything ever it seems. Cars CPO and still under warranty.

I mean this is bad, and makes me hate driving the car right now lol. Here’s a vid at cold start. Stops when I put pressure on the dash.

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[TwinSkrullDesign]

Has it always made this noise or does it change depending on if it’s hot or cold outside?

 

[BlackDTeggy]

Has it always made this noise or does it change depending on if it’s hot or cold outside?

Hasn’t always made the noise, not for the first year of ownership. I’m in Florida so it’s just hot lol. Super noticeable on cold start, except after getting back from dealer it didn’t do it on first start up; but noticed it rattling on the highway on the way home. So it almost seems to change based on where whatever is loose lands lol. It started when I would hit like 4k rpm’s, and now it doesn’t do it then , just more on cold starts. But also will rattle the whole time im driving after the car is warm, and not even going over bumps.

 

[acurax]

Where you press down is directly on top of the passenger side airbag, but to the left of that spot there is an antenna that's mounted under the dash. That could be a difficult spot to diagnose so I would exercise patience with them. It may be that something is shifting out of position while driving, maybe after hitting some bumps, and they may not have driven it far enough for it to reoccur.

It's hard to speculate as to exactly what is causing it, but I've been in under there so a couple things come to mind. There's a bolt that anchors the dashboard to the hanger beam just under the airbag. You have to remove the glove box to easily access it, but make sure that is tight. If that's secure, I'd remove the panel behind the audio display and check that the antenna mounted to the rear and right of the whole is secure. If so, then I'd get an endoscope camera w/ a light to feed in there to look around the airbag and see if anything specific jumps out as the culprit.

If those all checkout, then check the wire harness that routes through the area, maybe one of the clips isn't secure. Here's a pic of where the clips anchor it to the dash. It also shows the location of the bolt I mentioned previously.

 

[akoza]

A few thoughts and questions that come to mind for me:
- Remove your glovebox completely and see if it goes away. That'll rule out the dealership's suggestion. Same goes for cabin air filter (but don't have it removed for too long).
- Does it change depending on whether your AC is on or off?
- Does it only go away when pushing on that one spot? Try pushing around in other spots to see if it goes away too. My thought here is maybe the dash is rattling against the windshield and you either need to press a clip in or stick some foam between the windshield and dash.
- You can also lightly run your hand over the dash and try to feel for vibrations and pinpoint where they're the strongest.

 

[BlackDTeggy]

A few thoughts and questions that come to mind for me:
- Remove your glovebox completely and see if it goes away. That'll rule out the dealership's suggestion. Same goes for cabin air filter (but don't have it removed for too long).
- Does it change depending on whether your AC is on or off?
- Does it only go away when pushing on that one spot? Try pushing around in other spots to see if it goes away too. My thought here is maybe the dash is rattling against the windshield and you either need to press a clip in or stick some foam between the windshield and dash.
- You can also lightly run your hand over the dash and try to feel for vibrations and pinpoint where they're the strongest.

A/c doesn’t seem to have an effect. I’ll try to press on different spots, but I’m pretty sure it only stops in that one spot, where the noise is the loudest. I’ll try to drive without the glovebox and filter, really don’t think it’s that. I opened glove box and it was the same.

 

[BlackDTeggy]

Where you press down is directly on top of the passenger side airbag, but to the left of that spot there is an antenna that's mounted under the dash. That could be a difficult spot to diagnose so I would exercise patience with them. It may be that something is shifting out of position while driving, maybe after hitting some bumps, and they may not have driven it far enough for it to reoccur.

It's hard to speculate as to exactly what is causing it, but I've been in under there so a couple things come to mind. There's a bolt that anchors the dashboard to the hanger beam just under the airbag. You have to remove the glove box to easily access it, but make sure that is tight. If that's secure, I'd remove the panel behind the audio display and check that the antenna mounted to the rear and right of the whole is secure. If so, then I'd get an endoscope camera w/ a light to feed in there to look around the airbag and see if anything specific jumps out as the culprit.

If those all checkout, then check the wire harness that routes through the area, maybe one of the clips isn't secure. Here's a pic of where the clips anchor it to the dash. It also shows the location of the bolt I mentioned previously.

Thanks for this! Not sure I feel comfy diving into the dashboard, will make dealer look at it again but may have to if they don’t fix it. Or call corporate

 

[optronix]

Acura dealership experience has been horrible for me too.

 

[Victorofhavoc]

You can always try the safety approach with the dealer your next effort. Tell them you're concerned it's coming from the airbag (because that is definitely the area) and they can't really ignore it.

Agreed the acura dealer/support experience isn't great. I was hopeful recently it would improve with some corporate changes on the customer experience and support end, but that doesn't seem to have made any meaningful changes at the dealer level (at least not yet).

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