Hey all,

My spoiler has been really noisy on retract (extend seems pretty normal), so I figured that was a good excuse to do the DIY spoiler drive gear rebuild from p-car / pcarworkshop. Finished that up last night and while I had no issues with that job, unfortunately it was not the cause of my loud retract.

I checked the spoiler wall for cracks or wear, and it's a bit stiff but still intact. My next thought is the stiffness of the wall is creating some vibration on retract, but before I dump $100 into a new spoiler wall, anyone else have any bright ideas?

Thanks,

- Dave

 

I have the same noise on my car. I just changed out the spoiler wall - the old one was torn. With the new one in place - I still get the noise - so I'm thinking of doing the bearing change. Perhaps not your spoiler wall - but you can remove it and see if the noise goes away. Pretty easy to do - just raise spoiler 3/4 way up and you can gently pry and pull off the top part and then slide off the bottom part.

Does your sound like a griding noise on retract ?

 

Do a search. You can get a bearing for like $10 that will fix the problem forever (replacing the unsealed bearing with a sealed one). Takes about an hour to repair (most of the time is letting epoxy dry).

 

Actually the longest time for me was getting the damn housing apart.

 

Kind of, hard to describe, but it's between a grind and a deep howl, which is why I'm thinking something is vibrating.

Bob, thanks but I have already done this repair as I mentioned up front, and it did not fix the problem.

This took awhile for me too. I started by using a sharp utility knife as mentioned in the DIY, and finally switched to a wide-edged wood chisel.

- Dave

 

I'm doing this DIY as we speak. Getting ready to head out for the bearing. With the spoiler drive and cable out of the car, how easy does the actual spoiler move up and down? I'm talking about using your hand to lift and lower the spoiler, checking for binding in the joints and friction in the spioler wall. If the spoiler is free, run just the motor by itself. How healthy does the motor sound? It should be pretty quiet and smooth. The last thing would be to make sure the drive cable is well lubricated. Hopefully, this will help isolate the problem.

The DIY suggests using superglue. What has everyone been using?

 

It was pretty easy to manually raise and lower once all the gearing, etc. was disconnected, but I was thinking of going back and double-checking this anyway. I definitely didn't hear the noise while lowering the spoiler with hand-power, but I also wasn't checking for possible vibration sources at that point either.

Motor sounds fine, I ran it in both directions with the cable detached, so I don't think that's an issue.

And I lubed the cable as part of my rebuild, so I don't think it's that either. The noise seems to be coming from the spoiler itself, which makes me think spoiler wall, but I agree that it may also be the joints need to be lubed. However, I would think that in that case, the noise would happen both on extend and retract. Although I guess you could say the same for the spoiler wall. Hmm...

I used a Loc-Tite product labeled for "all plastics" that comes in two parts: a primer felt tip pen and the glue itself. It seemed to work pretty well, and was available at your local soul-killing big box home improvement chain.

- Dave

 

OK need to read these posts anymore with my glasses on... Missed the part where you fixed it. Try running the motor with just the cable attached and not connected to the transmission. While you lubed the cable, I have still seen these go bad from fighting with the bad tranny bearing..

 

Just replaced my torn wall last night. The spoiler was noisy before the repair. It is equally noisy after the repair. The loudest is when the spoiler is past the half way down mark till complete closure. It also seems louder retracting than extending.

 

Yes! Mine is the same way (noisiest from halfway down to close). Good to know that, at least in your case, the spoiler wall is not the culprit.

I think I need to take another look at the hinges, etc. I did get the noise with the drive disconnected from the motor and running the spoiler via a cordless drill, so the motor is not the culprit. Given the drive has just been rebuilt with fresh lube, I doubt it's the culprit either, but I need to disconnect that and raise and lower the spoiler manually to confirm.

- Dave

 

Dave,
Thanks for the suggestion on the glue. I did lube the hinges when I painted the grill. The top hinges are screws that have a little thread lock on them. I was able to remove them and put a small amout of lube on the shoulder of the screw. Since the screw is metal and fits inside plactic, I would suggest silicone grease or something that will not degrade the plastic. After lubing the top joints mine work very free. I did not lube the lowers since they were harder to get to and seemed to be very free. So far so good.
John

 

Remember that there are two spoiler motors. When I took apart the mechanical one (worm gear) and repaired it the noise diminished. However, after replacing the electric motor the noise became a low hummmmm. Unfortunately, a repalcement electric motor is about $100+ used and $400+ new.