Rattle in rear left of car - Need some help!

[eleu2166]

Hey guys,

So my cars developed a pretty loud rattle (comes and goes though) near the left rear wheel (outside the car). Here's a sound clip, I was cruising in a quiet parking lot with windows down (loudest at 20sec mark):

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/497649/Memo.m4a

Since I had some suspension mods (sway bar, rear bushings, coilovers), first thing I did was bring it back to my mechanic. They tightened everything and the sound didn't go away. Brought it to back Toyota (Peter Warren), who said they will not fix it as the suspension has been modified.

I then had a look under the car and found that when hit or moved the circled bracket below makes a similar noise to the rattle. (Note: This bracket/sensor appears to be missing from GT models).



You can easily access and see this bracket if you look under the rear left side of your car. Here's a video of me hitting the bracket:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erXNBpO3ZoE"]IMG 1720 - YouTube[/ame]


Now, my question is, is this normal? If anyone has some free time, can you hop under the rear of your car (car does not need to be jacked up) and see if you can reproduce what you see in my video? If not, then at least I may have found the source of the sound.

BTW, stay away from Peter Warren Service Center (@newft86 Andrew Smith you're still great though!), very unprofessional bunch of guys. Stalled my car three times while taking it out on a test drive, and called my suspension mods 'bullshit' when he was explaining that Toyota will not fix the rattle under warranty.

[Nardi330]

That looks like the HID self leveling sensor. I'll have a look at mine tomorrow. Have you lowered too much?

I have coilovers and the same subframe bush (factory swaybar) and no sound.

Is the sensor hitting the sway bar or exhaust pipe? You have Whiteline sway bars right?

[eleu2166]

Originally Posted by Nardi330

That looks like the HID self leveling sensor. I'll have a look at mine tomorrow. Have you lowered too much?

I have coilovers and the same subframe bush (factory swaybar) and no sound.

Is the sensor hitting the sway bar or exhaust pipe? You have Whiteline sway bars right?

Only been lowered 15mm. Yeah Whiteline swaybar, but it doesn't appear to be hitting the swaybar or exhaust, need a closer look to see what it's hitting.

[eleu2166]

So we went ahead and tightened the bracket itself and the bracket no longer rattles or clanks when hit. But unfortunately the rattle I wanted to fix is still there. Problem is that it's very intermittent, comes and goes, sometimes loud, sometimes soft, very very difficult to diagnose.

[eckoflyte]

I would start with the assumption it's a mod you've done to create the sound. Start with the swaybar and try putting in the stock swaybar and see how it goes. Trial and error.