Rattles

I can't take it anymore! Actually, just trying to see whether anyone else has had a similar problem. I have pretty loud rattles from both sides of the car which I think might be in the seatbelt mechanism inside the B pillars. Anyone?

NEVER SEEN A SEAT BELT RATTLE

I've had rattles fixed. You might want to take it in, there are a lot of adjustments.

DCP, Funny you mention it. I just picked my car up from the paint shop, had them do some front bumper work. A darn rattle has appeared (that I swear was not there) and the sound(s) appear to emminate under the passenger seat. The same seat that had a new buckle installed several weeks back due to an airbag idiot light and buckle sensor issue. Not sure it is buckle, sounds further down under the seat on mine. Let me know what you discover. RB

Thanks. I am going to take it in. I thought I might see whether anyone else had this problem to give the service department some guidance.

Yeah, I have one from the seat belt mechanism on the driver side. I try to not get too worked up about it, or just turn up the radio.

Headliner / sunroof very common. Don't ask me how I know this

I am also currently struggling with a very annoying rattle inside the passenger door (somewhere above the airbag).

Me too

I just put the roof down....if I have the cab closed there is a rattle somewhere in the passengerside area...sounds like it is in the roof...there is also a "clonking" sound in the rear seat area......I am to cheap to get it fixed...if they can! (and they -the stealer- will charge me an arm and 2 legs!) BUT with the top down.....no sounds, but the wind!!

Nicolaas, I had this same problem in my cab. I was able to isolate it to the two plastic covers just distal to the overhead lights. They are oblong shaped and used to cover the screws in the cab cover overhead. What I did was pry them both out using a butter knife, then attached some sticky felt liner to the insides (purchased at Home Depot), and reinstall. You'll need to really pry them back into place as well, but don't use too much force as you might crack a plastic flange. Besides, it's easy to see how they slip back into place. The rattles from the roof disappeared immediately and the car sounds much much tighter.

check the door striekr and latch they losen up and casue noises above the air bag theres nothing so if you have a noise, possibly someone left the 4mm allen under the "air bag" loose also 99% of the time door rattles are casued by loose speakers

My 996 sunroof rattles intermittently, sometimes for a week or more. Opening and closing sometimes helps. Taking it to the track seems to help! Thankfully it rattles only sometimes and is silent the rest of the time.

thanks Edward...as soon as I get the lovin' feeling back for my P-car I will look into it! Lost intererest a little lately...so she turned into a garage queen..but a neglected one.

I don't get anything I'd call a rattle, but I do have a few annoying minor buzzes that come from the various cheap plastic parts scattered around the cabin. The worst is the thin plastic cover over the top mount of the passenger side seatbelt. If I reach over and tap it a few times it seems to subside a little bit. There's also a little buzz/rattle I get somwhere near the steering wheel area that drives me crazy sometimes on these bumpy SoCal freeways. In reality, the buzzes aren't too bad; it just annoys me that my old '84 has a tighter cabin than the 2000 and that my run-of-the-mill Chevy Tahoe had NO buzzes or rattles at all. Porsche should and could do better than this. By the way, my wife's 2004 BMW 525 has some annoying buzzes too. What is it with these high-end cars and their buzzy interiors?

Hmmm, I've got two Porsche's 986 and 996 with no rattles (except when I put change in the non-smoker kit trays).

I took the 4S in to the dealer 4 times for a rattle/buzz in the driver's door. It ended up being the hinged piece of metal that slides into the door as the door closes. I believe the purpose of the piece is to hold the door open either half way or all the way. Mine was misshapen slightly, so that it would contact a piece of steel in the door and rattle/buzz, especially when the engine was cold and causing a little more body vibration. I hope this hopes someone. JimW, Austin

Uh, helps=hopes

Man, rattles just drive me nuts...especially when I think about my '83SC and how solid and rattle free it was. Lets see...it started right when the odometer clicked 60k. The first was a rattle from the release lever for one of the rear seats. I hate to admit it but I was so frustrated I stuck a very small sliver of duct tape around the metal lever just below the plastic **** and that has cured it. Then the pasenger seat started emaanating noise...I noticed if I grabbed the seat it would stop and I finally traced it to where the seat mounts to the floor...I spread a little white grease and that solved it. Next the door pocket gave a little 'twitchy' kind of noise and again if I pressed on it the noise would dissapear...I tried the white grease again on where the door pocket cover goes into the door cover and that helped. The latest rattle just started somewhere in the dash right in front of the driver position. But it sounds like its really 'inside' the dash...not going to be easy to trace. So now I'm noticing that the engine sure seems to make the car kind of vibrate. Why? Shouldn't it be running, or rather purring, as smooth as you would expect a fine german car to run? And this is right after my indie did my 60k service...and yeah, it goes like stink now but I still don't understand why it is so 'rough' instead of silky smooth.

I should clarify...what I'm experiencing is really better described as buzzing noises rather than rattles...actually, I think pure rattles might be easier to trace down and fix...

I have the passenger side door thing, the back seat thing and also some exhuast ratlle when I boot her up. We have cobblestones everywhere in Prague. The whole car is being shaken to bits.

Well, thanks for sharing Care4era but don't you think for the amount of money we pay for these cars that they should be solid as a rock, cobblestones or not?

I agree with you guys. There's nothing that can take away the pleasure of driving a car faster than a persistent rattle or two. I've found that it's not that hard to find rattles, if you have someone drive your car for you while you track down the rattle's source. I had a persistent rattle that I couldn't track down until I had my wife drive my car. All I knew is that it was coming from behind me. It turned out that it was a loose sunroof. A couple of loose bolts that needed tightening, and now I'm rattle free.

IM glad it worked for you but finding noises is by far the hardest part of my job, when the noise is behind the dash or outsdie of the cabin you cant have someone else drive while you listen

i don't know about you guys..... but having a cab........ the question is not where's the rattle, it's where's the quiet spot......although having the hard top on helps......

My 996 is the first Porsche I have ever owned that doesn't rattle and I am as happy with it as a pig in pooh. Ciao, Adrian

the soft top is way quiter then the hard tops, get a can of silicone spray and apply it to a rag open the top half way wipe down every sealing surface with the silicone where the sides of the top split apply silicone to joints where they touch with the top closed also apply silicone to the tenison cables that run down the sides of the fabric get some 3m teflon rape and apply a small piece in the windsheild mounts on each side. also clean the seal on the clamshell and at the back of the top under the clam shell no more noises

thanks man.... ill give it a try

Good to read that I'm not the only one with a noisy car (C2 Cab 2000 with Hardtop 33k miles). 2 weeks ago I test drove the 2004 500SL of my neighbor and he drove my 911. Man, you should have seen his face when we bumped over the first couple of potholes. I just said: "These are my new H&R sport springs - really stiff aren't they?" OK on the track it's better - but maybe only because of the open windows and in summer with my Softtop open and nice music, there's hardly any rattly - that's the best! Actually the back-end of my Hardtop cracks whenever I go over a deep pothole, like if the inner part pumps on the Softtop cover.