Dvinn

Warning : this fix will make your E so quiet you will loose all appeal to drive your Lexus.

I finally go a chance to fix the rattles in my E. There are quite a few here, the most annoying would be the seat rattles as there are two parts that create the sourround sound rattling.

Seat Rattles :
The loudest seat rattling is coming from the back side of the seat, underneath there is a panel held by 4 plastic clips that is causing the sound when the seats are compressed.

First pull the panel back and upwards to detach it, then insulate the plastic clip with aqustic foams like Dynamat.

Dvinn

Then push the panel back, this will be harder to do as the clips are sourrounded by foams but it will click if you push it hard enough. Here is the finished pic.

Dvinn

Seat rattles part 2 :

The other part of the seat that rattle is the side bolster that meet the plastic panel under the seat. This happens when you get in or out of the car and puts weight on the bolsters. Again using foams, cut a 1"x9" piece of foam and wedge it between the seat and plastic panel. The foam needs to cover about half inch on the panel in order to stop the squeeking. 3M double side tape are needed to hold the foam in place. The green arrows shows where the tape will go.

Dvinn

You can insulate all around the seats as well since the front and left side will rattle if you sit on it but that is not a big problem for me.

Dvinn

Front door/ac vent rattle :

This is actually not coming from the ac vent but from the panel in the door, push on the panel and you will hear rattle coming from it. You'll need to remove the plastic panel and insulate the five clips with foam and put it back. Then cut a half inch foam, as long as you can, and use a flat head screw driver to push it in the gap as shown. If done correctly, you can see a little bit of the foam and the rattle stops.

Dvinn

Center ac vent rattle :

This one is coming from the top vent, I am not sure it's an ac vent or speaker vent. Apply presure on it and it will squeek, lifting it up shows the top vent have archs that sit on the lower bridge of the vent. This is what's causing the squeeking.

Dvinn

You'll need to cut 9 pieces of small foam about 1/4" x 1/5" in size like this. Place these foam pieces between the plastic vents.

You can just pry it up with your finger without bending it or damaging it, but just don't pull too hard.

Dvinn

Finished pic. Green arrows shows the foam. Center rattle should now disappear.

McGuireV10

How many miles are on your 03?

Mine only has 18K (rapidly increasing), but I don't hear any rattles or squeaks at all. On the other hand, a few years of racing an open-pipe Viper has left me half deaf.

DWP

Ditto. Thanks for the impressive effort - I'll print the page for future reference - but so far our '03 has no rattles or squeaks. None. Nada. Zilch. That's especially impressive considering how rough its ride can be on poor roads. M-B may not know how to tune suspensions, but they did manage to screw the car together very tightly.

steph280

I was about to say that's a lot of rattles for such a new vehicle. Had me worried for a minute. My previous MBs were all rattle free, eventhough engine makes all kinds of weird noises. I was hoping the W211 would continue that tradition.

Nevertheless an excellent tutorial. Thanks for sharing.

Dvinn

Mine has 14,400 miles on it. Although these squeeks are minor and only happens at quiet areas like backing out of my drive way, at speeds no rattles can be heard, I consider myself to have good hearing. So even a little bit of tick I still get annoied by it. :v For reference, with stereo off, windows up sitting in traffic I can hear the sound airmatic makes when adjusting itself.

Le Burpor

The only rattle I get is from the front passenger head rest and only when the seat is empty. Got any fix for that?? The way I do it is to move the char forward a bit and lower the head rest all the way down to reduce the vibration to the head rest.

If I can fix that and the whistling sound from my A/c vents then i'll be 100% happy

lig

Very cool post. I have a squeaky front pillar trim piece now.

MBE55AMG

Awesome tutorial. Good thing the rattling/squeakings are all gone!

konigstiger

This fix was posted a while back by another member, worked for me and many others.

1) Remove the headrest. Move the headrest to its most upright position. Lean the seat back. Pull up and it pops out.

2) Grab the headrest poles, and pull them apart. The idea is to have more pressure on the sides when it is placed back into the seat. It takes some strength take your time to determine how much pulling is needed. In some cases the two rods need to spread outside the holes, just need to be pushed together to get them in.

alewifebp

Great post. Even after the dealer fixed the drivers seat, it still rattles, or at least squeeks. My car has started to develop some rattling. Bad pavement here in NJ, and 25K plus miles.

konigstiger

Excellent! I’ve complained about this one since I got the car. It only happens under the right circumstances and is the hardest to duplicate. The cabin must be completely silent and road conditions unique such as a slight washboard surface when coming to a stop.

A thousand thanks my friend.

Le Burpor

Now that you've mentioned it, I do remember the post. Thanks for putting the fix up again as I will try it now.

glojo

I would go crazy if our 211 had a single rattle. Hopefully your post might help anyone unfortunate enough though to have the symptoms you have described.

John

rdtjr

Thanks for the heads up. I will address similar items on Monday when I take it in for a D+ service and recalls. Service items include:

- intermittent buzzing (not rattling) which I think is coming from the central vent
- front passenger seat rattle which is also intermittent
- creaking right bolster on driver's seat when turning
- high pitched "normal" break squeal from right rear has turned into a sickly sounding squeal
- audio problem slowing returning after two gateway replacements and software upgrades
- lower leather insert and left bolster on driver's seat creasing. Could be just my fat a**.

DaCeptak0n

What kind of solution can you conjure up for a rattle that involves the rear passenger door on the side where if I place my hand in this awkward position, holding down the window sunshade, the rattling stops...

I hope you can understand this..! That rattling is driving me crazy

Brav

I have a few rattles, not bad. Most annoying is the pano roof which is getting progressively worse, especially when they tried to "fix" the minor problem it had before.. It makes a bad pop and crack sound when theres torsional stress on the frame (ie, going over speed bump at an angle).

Thanks for the writeup

jim256

You've done a lot of good work, but thankfully my '03 has had and still has no noises or rattles, maybe due to the good roads in North Carolina. 31K miles and my hearing is good, too.

Dvinn

I am not sure about that since I don't have sunshade for my car. But it could be loose screws that needs to be tighten.