Eliminating squeaks from the rear interior

For as long as I've owned my '15 GT I've had squeaks from the back, and it's been driving me nuts. I've had the car into the dealer 6 or 7 times and each time they've claimed to have fixed it, but then it's back in another day or two.

Then I found out that their lead interior tech, the one doing all the diagnosis and work?

He has severe hearing damage from military and riding motorcycles without a helmet. Awesome.

For nearly the past year I've been going after these squeaks myself, using insulating tape, stuffing rags in places, and tightening fasteners. Nothing's seemed to really work.

Today, though, I had my first squeak-free drive to work ever! I (tentatively) think I've found what was causing that goddamned annoying buzz.

The C-pillars are clearly the culprits. Stuffing them full of rags seemed only to provide temporary relief. Yesterday I went a bit deeper.

The C-pillars just pull straight off. Behind them there's a black plastic mounting point that isn't rigidly mounted and does not have any insulation on it. You'll know the one when you pull the pillar cover off: It's the piece into which the C-pillars snap and secure. As the car experiences bumps and such, the plastic piece taps and buzzes against the metal body.

My solution was to move the black plastic block off the body a little bit and insert strips of the soft (loop) side of adhesive hook and loop tape behind it. That way as the piece flexes and moves, it contacts an absorbent piece of material. I also lined the interior contact points of the C-pillar cover in adhesive loop tape as well.

Between the dealer and myself, those C-pillar covers have probably been off 15 times in the past year. I'm really hoping this finally cured the issue, but the rough section of road on my way to work that always sets my teeth on edge from the squeaking was nice and quiet today!

If anyone has the same buzzes I've been experiencing, I'd suggest you try the adhesive loop tape trick. I can take photos if necessary. Hell, I have a bunch of loop tape left over: If you need some, let me know and I'll stuff a bit in an envelope!

Thanks - this is exactly one of the reasons I avoid removing panels if at all possible. The clip opening stretch and then they don't hold as well allowing buzzing to happen.

It drives my OCD crazy!

Good work. Those buzzes drive me crazy. Been going through a dynamatting process recently and spent ages trying to get the C-Pillar trim off and unclip the 'tether clips.' Someone helped me in another thread on how to un-hook the tether but my question to you is, to remove the panel do you just give it a good pull to release it? Pulled on it pretty hard and it didn't budge so was scared to pull any harder in case I broke anything. Thanks.

Can you please post pictures of where you applied adhesive tape. I've been looking for a fix to this, I know the C Pillar piece your talking about just would like to know where you applied the tape in a picture .

I'll try to get some photos in the next day or two. To pull the C-pillar cover off, yes, you just pull straight outwards.

I apologize for the quality of these photos. For some reason I can't get my LG G4 to take a decent photo; they're usually overexposed as shit, or if I turn down the exposure they turn out dark. Harrumph.

Pull off the c-pillar cover. This is held in place by three body clips and a tether clip. Just pull straight out.



To remove the tether clip, pay attention to the shape. You'll rotate the tether 90 degrees, pull, then rotate 90 degrees again and pull.



This one's dark. Bleh.



Pull the plastic piece that holds the tether clip out a bit. There's no insulation between it and the body, and it easily rattles. I used adhesive loop tape on the body with the soft side facing the plastic piece. I also placed loop tape on the clip points to dampen vibration.

Since I had the C-pillar cover all the way out, I also attached flocking tape to the mount points and baffles of the interior of the C-pillar cover.

I hope this helps! If nothing else, this *has* to dampen some of that goddamned rattling!

Could you post a picture of the clip itself please.

Roh92cp said:

Could you post a picture of the clip itself please.

Click to expand...

I'd rather not take apart my C-pillar cover again, but look again at photo #2. The in-focus black bit in the foreground? That's the tether clip.

brandonsmash said:

I apologize for the quality of these photos. For some reason I can't get my LG G4 to take a decent photo; they're usually overexposed as shit, or if I turn down the exposure they turn out dark. Harrumph.

Pull off the c-pillar cover. This is held in place by three body clips and a tether clip. Just pull straight out.

To remove the tether clip, pay attention to the shape. You'll rotate the tether 90 degrees, pull, then rotate 90 degrees again and pull.

This one's dark. Bleh.

Pull the plastic piece that holds the tether clip out a bit. There's no insulation between it and the body, and it easily rattles. I used adhesive loop tape on the body with the soft side facing the plastic piece. I also placed loop tape on the clip points to dampen vibration.

Since I had the C-pillar cover all the way out, I also attached flocking tape to the mount points and baffles of the interior of the C-pillar cover.

I hope this helps! If nothing else, this *has* to dampen some of that goddamned rattling!

Click to expand...

Awesome. Thanks mate. Managed to get it off. Just pulled a bit harder. Good tips on the rattling. Mine didn't rattle before but after pulling them off who's to say they won't when I put them back on again. After poly diff bushings and a Magnaflow comp catback it feels like everything has started rattling.

I tried fixing this rattle, but you can still somewhat hear it on rough pavement. I put sticky felt on all the clips. Also, I put gorilla tape on both sides of the piece that is part of the tether clip (circled in red). Also, I put felt in-between the black plastic and the metal body (circled in blue). So while on the freeway it was rattling and I put pressure on the c-pillar and it stopped. The location of the pressure point was where the tether clip base is located on the inside. So is there something that I didn't insulate. When I tap on the pillar it makes a hollow sound in this region. While the driver side c-pillar doesn't make this hollow sound when you tap on it. Could the tether clip be banging against in the plastic?

Did this fix yesterday and it seems to have really helped the rattling and buzzing. Thanks for the help.

Just a quick question regarding the tether cable:

Can it just be eliminated all together? It would appear to me that the rattle could still be the actual tether rattling while its inside of its own hollowed securing location. If the tether was removed completely, it may be the answer.

Thoughts?

It's there for a reason. I'd say it would be safer to retain it. There would have been a significant amount of testing to determine what happens in the event of that airbag going off and i'm certain the tether plays a role in stopping that trim piece from flying into the side of a rear passenger's face or the back of your head in an accident.

I did this but it didn't really help.

In this pic, did you really wrap velcro strap around the air bag? :shrug:

It's helped some for me, but now I'm chasing down other rattles. Seriously, Ford, WTF.

And, no, I didn't velcro-wrap the airbags. The dealer actually did that.