maxpowers

The rattles in this car are starting to get to me. I ordered it new (14 C4S) and it's had intermitent problems with rattles since I got it. I've brought it to the dealership multiple times and they've claimed to have fixed a few of them, but it's still rattling like crazy!

I've seen a ton of videos on youtube and read articles with people people felt or foam just about everywhere in the car, from the cover in the frunk, to center console, to the door. I don't know how I'm supposed to figure out the source of the problem to tell the dealer.

There are areas in the car that when I hit rattle so obviously I'm going to mention those. I have the base radio and when I try to listen to AM it sounds like the passenger door is vibrating and makes listening impossible. When I start driving or go over bumps I hear something coming behind me and when I'm driving I often hear an annoying rattle above me.

The other day I drove the car on a mini road trip and the rattles were just too much. When I bring the car into the dealer what can I do to ensure they fix all of them? It seems like if I point to a few areas they'll only look at those when in reality I don't know what's causing the problem. Don't they have a way to diagnose rattles?

Gordon Shumway

If they are easy to duplicate, just take the service guy for a short ride, and point them out. Things will get fixed quicker once you've eliminated the "unable to duplicate" aspects of car repairs.

maxpowers

Thanks! I'll try that.

Just seems like if I point to a certain area as the source of the rattle and they fix that and the car is still rattling they should know enough to keep at it until it doesn't rattle anymore. Last time I brought the car in on the way home I heard all kinds of rattles. For now on if that happens I'm going to turn around and bring it back until they fix it.

Fred2

See if you can locate the source for the mechanic.
If you can reproduce the rattle by "thumping" on a certain part of the car (door panel, speaker housing, part of the dash, etc...) , that will be a huge help for the mechanic.

///M3THOD

Man I feel your pain..

Ive been having issues with my 17 GTS. I bought the car in August and its been in 5 times for rattles. They are actually supposed to be bringing and engineer in to look at it.

My entire drivers side door panel is being replaced because they cannot resolve the issue and believe it may actually be a faulty weld in the panel.

My D/S seatbelt mechanism rattles non stop over any kind of pavement, they've looked at it twice now and are probably going to replace it.

The fabric mechanism that shades the roof rattles in the full open position underneath the headliner.

The only successful rattle they've looked into is the passenger side door rattle behind the speaker grill.

Im incredibly frustrated with it as this car is brand new and its been in every other week basically.


The only way to really resolve them is if you duplicate the team on a ride along and/or identify the exact area and direct the technician to look there. Ive been pretty unimpressed with their results thus far as they give the car back to me with it rattling which begs the question, what did they even do?

NoGaBiker

There are some noises (I call them buzzes rather than rattles -- buzzing on less than perfect pavement but not potholes and lane dividers; the sort of roads that in our ML350 you would think it's perfect tarmac) but there are so many in the GT4 that I pretty much always drive with the windows down, or at least cracked.

Problem solved!

Bemo

Same here, I’ve gotten most fixed and had to get those duplicated by taking few test drives with the techs. Not a bad approach since I also collected phone numbers in the process, for the occasional “Indy� stuff!

docjohnM

Porsche needs to engage in a "Rattles program" like they did with the 997. I bought the last model year of the 997.2 and it only had a couple of very minor rattles. My friend had a 997.1 and it was a POS. Rattles everywhere, about 10X worse than a Vette. A tech told me that the factory spent a great deal of time "beta testing" on the .1 folks and solved all of the rattle issues. This would seem to be true. My buddy asked how much the dealer would charge for the full rattle-package and he paid $700 to finally have the porsche of his dreams. (he bought the .1 with 10K easy miles)

I have a daily driven R8 with nary a rattle for 20K miles and that model is a limited production, "one off" that was developed on a shoe string budget and it is tight as a drum.

Nothing says, "POS" more than a $150,000 rattle bucket. Porsche needs to know this.

///M3THOD

I couldn't agree more, Ive had multiple people in my car ask me where that noise was coming from and then laugh when I explain my brand new Porsche was plagued with rattles.

maxpowers

That happened to me a few days ago. I picked up a friend at the airport to go to lunch and when I first started rolling he asked what that noise was, then again as we were driving along the highway.

I've driven a lot of cars and have never had issues like this with any of them, so I don't think I have sensitive ears or am being unreasonable. My brother still has a 97 Ford and it has never rattled like the 991. A big part of why I bought the 991 vs a Corvette had to do with the supposed reliability/quality that you get with a Porsche. Seems like I was mistaken as a lot of the 991 appears to be cheaply built.

docjohnM

I hear ya bro.

When a car company brags that they have the highest profit margin in world, and can sell you an $8,000 leather covered fuse box, you best have your assembly line folks take a few minutes to push all clips into the right places.

I'm hoping I get a good one..... ;-)

Update us when they figure out where the rattles are. (also, some dealers are wizards at this and some truly stink...you may need a different dealer...mine is an ace at it.)

stout

After a rattle-free (and 100% problem-free) 14,000 miles in my GT4, I have to say I was disappointed to hear a rattle in the driver's door card just 26 miles after taking delivery, this on the drive home in steady state freeway cruising. It's still there, and has been joined by a tiny intermittent creak/scrape in the RF dashboard area.

There's also an odd sound in the back of the car juuuuust as you let out the clutch in first gear or reverse, like a heat shield rattling or rubbing on something. It's very minor—at first I thought it was oil coursing through the lines—but it does not sound right.

The car only has 365 miles. Also noticed the "PORSCHE" logo on the rear bumper is offset an inch to the right and crooked, too—a surprise given that its letters are supposed to be applied with a template. Looks like sloppy handwork, possibly a result of PTS or port repairs. Obviously, the car needs to go back to have all of the above addressed.

///M3THOD

That would drive me absolutely nuts!

Dewinator

Am I the only one that feels like VW might be sort of cashing in the value built up in the Porsche brand these days?

stout

Yep, my OCD self can't look at it for too long. The silver lining is I missed something on the configurator—a little paint brush icon that pops up to let you change the $380 painted Porsche logo (body color) to black—and I'll have gloss black letters applied when this is fixed as there is no other chrome on the car. Suncoast sells both matte black and gloss black, but I think the latter will go better with the gloss black engine grille.

As for the rest, cars are complex animals, and I sometimes think our expectations are too high. If these little issues can be addressed once and well—and other noises don't pop up—then all is good.

The car is great.