Rattle Search and Destroy Mission

[Jack Straw]

My '17 R has developed a nasty rattle that seems to be in the right side of the back seat area. It came on slowly, infrequent a couple of months ago, now it's almost constant on any jiggly pavement.



My first impression was that it sounded like a seat belt buckle noise, plastic clanking on metal. I've checked everything obvious in the cabin and trunk to no avail.


Next step is to install my bride in the back seat while I cruise over some lousy pavement. Perhaps she'll get a fix on it.


Any ideas gentlemen??

 

[Golfs everyday]

I had a rattle between the door panel and the passenger front door on my Golf-R. I sandwiched a piece of hard felt at the bottom and it took care of that.

When I search for rattles I go around banging the panels and console until I can reproduce the noise.

 

[Jose_Gti]

If you are sure there’s nothing behind the trunk making the noise like the spare tire or the jack then You could remove the back seat to check if that way you see where the noise is comping from.

 

[sshlyk]

I would check door (play bass heavy music) and roof. There are bunch of cables running overhead, try tapping your roof with the fist (slightly).you can find a spot that resonates the entire roof, and usually it will make loose cables rattle as well.

 

[cruzmisl]

The spring mechanism to fold down the center ski hole can rattle.

Also the tail gate plastic cover has like 10 metal clips, those could all rattle.

 

[SRGTD]

One common source of rattles from the rear seat backrest on the mk6 Golf (and also the mk7) is the seat backseat latch mechanism, which rattles against the hook/loop that it latches onto when the seat back is in the upright position.

If that’s the source of your rattling noise, drop the seat backrest down and wrap some electrical insulation tape around the hook/loop to remove any ‘free play’ or movement between the catch and the latch when you put the seat backrest back into the upright position.

I had this on the left hand side catch on my mk6 Golf and the above remedy fixed the problem - no more rattling noises .

 

[MasterBlaster]

Adding to this thread as I had the same issue.

TL;DR - It's possibly the striker pins that bolt seat backs to the seat bench. Pull apart and wrap with felt.

I have a 2017 Golf R and mine too had a nasty rattle sound. It is almost plastic like. I tried hunting it down forever and it steadily became more frequent and constant like yours. Over every single tiny or large bump it rattled and at any speed. When the seats were down, there was no rattle. When they were up and locked, the rattle was always there.

Mine is a Certified pre-owned. I took it to the dealer just the other day. They were going to charge me $250 to start under the CPO warranty and then of course more if it was something more labor intensive. My car is only at 20k miles but the bulls**t 3-year warranty is up. Anyway, I argued with them back and forth (I've bought a number of car from them) and they agreed to do it for the normal $50 deductable if it was nothing serious.

So, they took the rear seats apart and found that the striker pins that hold the upper part of the seat to the lower part were the cause. They insulated them with felt and reassembled and now the rattle is gone. While they were doing that they also found a coolant leak and replaced the thermostat free of charge (powertrain warranty is still valid).

UPDATE: One week since repair and there is still no rattle. Keeping fingers crossed that this is a perma-fix.

 

[BlackT5]

I have what I think is a the same rattle.

Any chance you can take a picture of the striker pin?

Thanks

 

[scotthilly]

Mine I think is a rattle, but it sounds more like plastic bags rubbing or something like that. Similarly, only when backseats are up, and always over bumps. It literally sounds exactly like you crinkling a plastic grocery bag - is that what you guys think too?

 

[uberdot]

Install all 3 stage 2 mounts, put a smfw in, get a custom tune. Random rattle will be a thing of the past.

 

[MasterBlaster]

I have what I think is a the same rattle.

Any chance you can take a picture of the striker pin?

Thanks

So I don't have a picture of the striker pins that hold the seat backs to the seat base. But this video shows how to remove the seats and at the 3:45 mark he literally points at it. My VW dealer literally wrapped that with felt. LOL. I'm sure the other side of the seat back, the wheel that he points to at the 3:49 mark took some felt too. This guy is kind of irritating to listen to ("badda bing!") but he does a good job showing everything.

Mine I think is a rattle, but it sounds more like plastic bags rubbing or something like that. Similarly, only when backseats are up, and always over bumps. It literally sounds exactly like you crinkling a plastic grocery bag - is that what you guys think too?

I think that is what you're dealing with. Just my guess but yeah. Seems like VW miscalculated something by about a milimeter or two when designing these cars. For what it's worth, when I bought my MKV GTI new in 2007, the dash air vents rattled like crazy. It was a known problem on those cars and VW fixed it. The Golf rattle seems to move around the car with each new generation. Haha.

Both of my Audi S3's (2017 and then 2018) were rock solid. No rattles at all. God I miss those diamond stitched sport seats.

 

[MasterBlaster]

UPDATE: Hi all. I’m a moron and didn’t think to pull the seats down after the fix until I had to recently. Duh.

The striker pins that the dealership was talking about were literally the ones that hold the seat backs to the C Pillars and not to the seat bottoms (as they had told me). Check out pic below. It’s an easy, cheap fix that should save a lot of headache. Wrap automotive felt — or whatever you want — around these pins and the rattle is gone.

 

[chadbrochills]

Glad I stumbled on this thread. I tracked this rattle down about 1.5mo ago but at the time just used a dab of Mobil 1 grease on them and it went away until the other day. Going to try the felt method.

 

[chadbrochills]

Had some Scotch Super 88 electrical tape laying around, so I put some on the striker pins for the rear seats and that rattle is gone. Onto the next one! lol

 

[BlackT5]

I didn't have any felt tape but I used an old disposable face mask for a test and the rattle is gone. More permanent solution to follow.