Can you ID this rattle at rear door??

I developed a rattle that comes from the rear latch area. When I go over any bumpy road (i.e. my back lane) it sounds like you're knocking your knuckle on the interior plastic moulding.

I took all the rear plastic out of the car (whew!) thinking that something was loose behind the plastic and was knocking around, I even took out the spare and the tire cover. - no luck, the sound was still there. I had my wife drive around while I laid back there listening. After driving with the rear door open (no more sound) then closed (sound coming from the latch area), I started to play with the latch catch positions.- again no luck.

But after I jammed a piece of spongy foam into the latch mechanism to take the slack out of the rod that goes from the key cylinder to the latch - the sound pretty much went away with only a rattle here and there over bumps.
The baffling part is I don't know why this makes things better, the rod itself is not the noise maker nor do it think it causes the door to unseat...

Now, has anyone experienced this noise before? should this rod be loose? (from what I can see it is not broken or bent) should I keep playing with the position of the U-shaped latch and V-shaped shim on the door frame to position the door better?

Any thoughts would be very much appreciated.

Cheers, eh.

Try using the search function and you'll find you to adjust the lock striker to hold the door better.

my bump noise was the lug nut wrench in the back.. slamming down over bigger bumps... stuffed some other things in there and it's gone

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Originally Posted by Tone

Try using the search function and you'll find you to adjust the lock striker to hold the door better.

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That was my first culprit, I played with that for a day and got the door from very loose to too tight with no change in noise behavior. I've even closed a rag in the door to jam it tight and still the noise is there. So it makes me think it's not the door itself moving around. I'll play with it a bit more...

i have a very similar problem that irritates me to no end. and i also sent my girlfriend to the back to investigate while i was driving.

i had two seperate causes...

one was just the plastic roof rack mount covers jiggling around in the rear side compartments. make sure everything in those compartments is out or secure. the second was just the spare tire cover not tightened down enough. one of my plastic red screws has been broken and it allowed the cover to smack against the door when i was going over things as small ad concrete seams. some foam between the door and the tire cover baffeled it pretty well.

i hope you find the problem, i know how irritating that repetitive sound can be....

Mine was the lug wrench (stuffed a towel in the compartment)

Then it was the spare tire main bolt (tightened it), but the one that took me forever to figure out was this:

The three bolts that hold the black spare tire bracket were a little loose, so even without the spare tire, or when the spare was tight, I still got the rattle.