Glove box rattle challenge!!

[Reefrf]

I'm hoping this thread helps others with car rattles. First off, let me explain that car rattles drive me crazy. I really wish I didn't notice them but I do, I had two of them, one was a creaking sound which was solved by changing the seat rails on the drivers side. The seat would actually move a little when starting & stopping. The engineers agreed & replaced the rails and the seat was rock solid & the sound was no more.

The second rattle was far more challenging & coming from the glove box. It was fairly loud & almost constant. The dealer could not fix it even though they could hear it. I had narrowed the rattle down to the glove box because I literally removed the glovebox from the car & the rattle stopped. I figured the sound was inside the locking mechanism so the dealer decided to replace it with a new one since their solution (felt tape) didn't work. I was sure the new glove box would solve the problem but it didn't! But I figured it out. Here's the issue. There is a tension cable that connects to the side of the glove box ( snaps on). That cable runs through a hole to the box. The end of the cable has a metal crimp attached which was rattling on the plastic housing the cable ran through. I wrapped some duct tape over the metal at the end & bingo it stopped!!!

If you have this same rattle hopefully this helps. I also let the dealer know. I think they were surprised at my tenacity!!

[XIS]

I am with you. I hear EVERY little noise that doesn't sound like it should be there... It is a blessing and a curse.

Congrats on fixing it! I know that very gratifying feeling.

[loystock]

This is great! I hope it fixes the problem in my wife's 03 Q45. I put dampers, have removed the glove box, checked for rattle, checked the hinges and latches but couldn't find the problem. I'm planning to put plumber's putty at the end of of the tensioner instead of duct tape. I'll let you know if it works.

[TonyN]

heck yea. going to do this now! Thank you

BTW, i removed coins from my coin try because of the rattle lol.

[Rockhound2.0]

Sorry to revive a 3+ year old thread - but I wanted to share that this rattle had been driving me nuts in my '13 370Z, and I fixed it last night according to Reefrf's instructions! I'm guessing this is a common design shared across various Nissan/Infiniti models, as it describes the Z's glove box issues exactly.

I found a few items related to the glove box dampener mechanism in my Z that could have been rattling. The first was the aforementioned metal crimp - I wrapped it in felt tape. The plastic clip that holds the dampening cable to the glove box was a loose plastic-on-plastic fitting, so I applied plenty of felt tape around there too. In my Z, I also noticed that the grommet the cable runs through was an odd plastic fitting, which was again rather loose - and a plastic-on-plastic rattle prone design. I wrapped that grommet in felt tape to keep it secure and quiet. Lastly, I applied felt tape to the inner wall of the back plate behind the glove box where the dampener cable and attachment could potentially rattle when the glove box is closed.

So far the rattles are gone - thanks to finding this thread via a Google search.