Quality niggles with new Euro

[JustRight]

i found the culprit that is causing the rattle. it is like a squarish metal piece attached to underneath of the rear parcel, between the sub and left speaker and just behind the middle safety belt roller plastic enclosure. anyone know what this thing is for? looks heavy and there is no cable attached, looks almost like a weight. when i bang onto it gently i can hear the same rattles, sound like something is loose inside.

Yep mate, I can help you there. That 'thing' is called the "Rear Parcel Shelf Dynamic Damper - With Premium Sound System".

The idea is that it is supposed to help offset and damp the vibration created by the sub-woofer. I also found that mine was a bit noisy, but its not actually loose, it will most likely be the spot welds around it giving off that annoying 'Crack' noise that they do.

What I did with mine was to carefully apply some load to the damper with a BIG screwdriver and distort the rear shelf panel. You will proably hear the cracking and creaking noises as you do it. After giving it a tweak, thump the underside of the parcel shelf with the heel of your hand and see if the 'noise' has diminished, or better still gone away.

If, on the other hand, the damper really is loose then the only way to deal with that is to remove the rear parcel shelf and tighten the retaining bolt. Removing the rear shelf is not that difficult if you want to have a go yourself, but you will need to spend approx $25 on two new retaining pins for the 'C' pillar trims which have to be removed. These pins are a one-use item. Better still, take it to your dealer and get them to do it

I managed to get mine quiet by tweaking the spot welds, but then ended up pulling out the rear parcel shelf and physically removing the joke of a factory sub-woofer and installing a Focal vented sub box in the boot. Along with my other big Focal speaker upgrade this gave the best result.

Anyway, good luck. Glad that you were able to identify the culprit.

Cheers.

PS: Just thought of something. Get someone to climb in the back seat and pull sharply on the third seat belt and 'lock' it. Then try hitting the damper and see if the noise has gone. If so, then the rattle could be the mechanism or mounting of the seat belt retractor, which is mounted just forward of the damper weight.