Popping/Rattling Noise in rear of 3s Hatch

taylor5

Member
:
Titanium Mazda3 Hatch
I am experiencing a irritating popping/creaking/rattling noise in the rear end of my 3s Hatch. Whenever the temperature drops below 50 degrees and I drive along over bumps in the road, there it is. It is irritating as hell.

My dealer even hears it and the service manager hears it when he rides in the back. We removed all the cargo trays down to the spare tire and it is not them. He and I both felt at first it was the hatch lock. We lubricated it with silicone and it did not get rid of it.

Then we both noticed that my rear bumper moves up and down a little and seems to make the same noise. They tried tightening it down and even stuffed it with some foam rubber between the metal part inside and the syrofoam part to tighten it up. It is nice and tight when it is warm, but then it is still moveable when it is cold.

Has anyone else experienced this???? Could it be the shock towers in the rear and maybe the caps that cover the bolts??? Or is it the lock or maybe even the Hatch supports that hold it open????

I called him again this morning cause it was cold out and doing it again, he told me to bring it in and will try to diagnose it again and work with that bumper more.....They are being cool about it, but since they have no info on it or past experience, they are scratching their heads about it.

Does anybody out there know about this and what it is and what it takes to fix it?
 
taylor5 said:
I am experiencing a irritating popping/creaking/rattling noise in the rear end of my 3s Hatch. Whenever the temperature drops below 50 degrees and I drive along over bumps in the road, there it is. It is irritating as hell.

My dealer even hears it and the service manager hears it when he rides in the back. We removed all the cargo trays down to the spare tire and it is not them. He and I both felt at first it was the hatch lock. We lubricated it with silicone and it did not get rid of it.

Then we both noticed that my rear bumper moves up and down a little and seems to make the same noise. They tried tightening it down and even stuffed it with some foam rubber between the metal part inside and the syrofoam part to tighten it up. It is nice and tight when it is warm, but then it is still moveable when it is cold.

Has anyone else experienced this???? Could it be the shock towers in the rear and maybe the caps that cover the bolts??? Or is it the lock or maybe even the Hatch supports that hold it open????

I called him again this morning cause it was cold out and doing it again, he told me to bring it in and will try to diagnose it again and work with that bumper more.....They are being cool about it, but since they have no info on it or past experience, they are scratching their heads about it.

Does anybody out there know about this and what it is and what it takes to fix it?

The only rattling I have had was the drivers side door, It sounded like the speaker was blown when songs with low bass would be blastin, then I realised I had loose change in the side compartment. It appears the woman must have emtied a pocket without me realising. I would have looked like an ass showing up at the dealer complaining of a blown speaker only to have them remove my spare change lol

Everything has been tight on mine 950 miles driven in warm and cold(weather has been screwed up this past month in Jersey) I would suspect your is a factory defect somewhere where a part gets bolted on. What if part of your frame or chassy was bumped was bent when they intalled a body panel? Just enough to cause a misalignement but not enough to alert quality control. Are they going to rebuild the ass end of that thing, I mean your car is new, if they can't figure it out with screwing and stuffing(huhu I said. . . ) then they need to escalate the repair process.
 
Last edited:
solution found?

My dealer called me today and they think they found it.....They think it has a bad shock on the rear and so they have ordered new ones for it. They think it was either a bad batch or it somehow got damaged as it was being shipped to the dealer from Japan and then railed or trucked....because of the way they tighten down the cars and practically hold them down to the bottom of the shock travel. I get it back tomorrow,,,,will let you all know how it goes...
 
Not fixed...

Noise is still there. Back in the shop again. Tried a trick though, when it was noisy, I pulled over and opened the hatch and drove down the road with it open.....Noise disappeared. When I pulled over and closed it, noise came back..

Now they are gonna play with the hatch struts, lock and panel in the hatch door.....

Well see.....
 
They should play with your balls while there at it for all this hastle.
(beer)
 
I have the same problem, rattle from the rear, driver door rattle, and some rattle noise from the dash board, car only with 3000miles, frickin' airbag light is on....

I did the same thing, took out all the cover board and spare tire and wrench and bla bla bla in the back and it still making noise !! Don't really know what that is
 
3rd time at shop

Dropped it back off at the shop on Monday, now today it is Wednesday and my Service Manage told me it was doing it really good yesterday morning (only does it when it is 45 degrees or colder). When they (he had his best service tech riding in the cargo area) pulled over, they popped off the strut(s) that hold the hatch open....Noise went away....but he thinks it could be cause the car warmed up....They are driving it again this morning first thing with the struts off and will see if that could possibly be it. It is hard for them to work on it cause the window of opportunity is very short because as the temp rises the noise disappears and they have to wait for the next cold morning.....Frustrating to me and them......But they are trying......

Will keep you all posted.....
 
Possibly Cured???....

Well I got it back...finally...and they think while scratching their heads that the culprit(s) may have been the Hatch Struts. The tech riding in the cargo area said it really sounded like that could be the only other thing possible. They have replaced them and all seems quiet even today on a mild 50 degree morning. But this devil noise does not appear until it is below 50 so I may not know until next fall if it has been fixed right......
 
Back