Another update to my rattle battle
This is now the 3rd post I have made about this rattle i’m having in my ‘26 Limited Update on my Rattle Battle. https://www.reddit.com/r/wrx\\\_vb/s/WCxqvA0E50
Since then, I’ve ripped out the rear deck, put felt tape under every section where the wires come in contact with metal, added some weatherstripping with the felt tape in certain areas, between the sub and metal, taken out the trunk light and wrapped it in electrical tape where it contacts metal, and wrapped the torsion bars in the trunk with electrical tape and some foam so they don’t make noise when rattling. I also added foam under the keyless entry box, but that’s a separate buzzing sound that would only happen during cold start for me.
At this point, i’m starting to run out of ideas for what else it could be. I’ll put videos of the sound in the comments for reference. If i had to describe it, it’s like a creaking/ticking that only occurs when going over bumps or road imperfections and it’s very annoying to live with. This car is a 26 Limited that I’ve only had for 1.5 months / 1700 miles.
Any pointers would be great.. I’m attaching a video to this post with the sound in hopes that someone might recognize it. For context, the car has 3300 miles on it now, but I have been fighting with this for the past 2 months, and I noticed it at around maybe 1200 miles.
The noise happens when going over bumps, potholes, road imperfections, uneven roads, pretty much about anything that isn’t perfectly paved asphalt. If I were to try and describe where it’s coming from, it sounds like it’s in the rear either in the C pillar, rear deck, or somewhere back in the top of the trunk.
The noise can be mitigated by only 3 things I’ve noticed so far. The first is rain, if the car sits out in the rain for some time it will go away for about a day or so until things fully dry up. The same thing happens when I wash the car, but usually it will return faster. The second is music, I can’t tell if it’s because I can’t hear it when the music is loud enough, but it seems like when the tone of what i’m playing is loud enough it will stop completely (maybe above volume level 15), and will continue if a quiet part of the song starts playing. This could be a coincidence, but i’m not sure. The last is warm weather, i’ve noticed if the car sits out in the sun all day while i’m at work, it won’t go away completely but it’ll be less sensitive than during my commute to work in the morning.
In the past 2 months here is what I or the dealer have tried;
Pulling the rear deck and all of the panels back there out and foam taping under all of the wires, the keyless entry box, and the rear middle seatbelt holder. I had my car like this for a couple of days and the noise was still there as loud as ever.
Sound deadening, before putting all of the trim pieces back in I decided to put kilmat all around the rear deck, c pillar, and trunk. This wasn’t really a full attempt to solve the rattle, but I figured while I was back there I would try and lessen the drone from the STi mufflers that came on the car.
Electrical taping the torsion bars where they mount from the plastic hanger in the trunk
Wrapping a circle of foam tape around the sub where it sits in the rear deck
Adjusting the trunk latch, I slid it down to where the trunk would just barely close, still nothing.
Rear tail light being loose, this was what the dealer found when I had them look at the car just this past weekend, and they noticed the tail light was loose in its housing so they put some foam tape to try and hold it tight. I thought this was it, but it only lasted for less than a day until the noise gradually started coming back. After this I tried adding more to their work myself, so i threw some more foam tape in there and shimmed the white mounting clip with electrical tape, the taillight doesn’t move anymore but the noise is still there, in fact the video I attached is from yesterday where I was driving without the tail light or that clip installed. I suspect that the dealer left my car out to get rained on over the weekend when they had it, and they just tried the first thing, drove it, didn’t hear it, and called it a day.
Spraying WD40 Silicone on end link and LCA bushings, this one seemed like it was for sure the fix for maybe about 30 minutes of driving, but it came back eventually even after i sprayed more.
I have done a couple more random things but this is getting long so I tried to mainly list the big ones, at this point i’m feeling pretty clueless and plan to take it back to the dealer next week, but I’m hoping I might get some ideas from the community of things i could try to tackle myself in the meantime.