As part of my ongoing quest to eliminate noises I get from my rear door panel/area, I discovered that the vertical trim piece that the mini-window shade comes out of (or, at least, the piece around it) is loose. I'm pretty sure it's been loose for a while because I noticed it when I was removing the door panel itself and am sure that what I was doing didn't loosen it, just revealed how loose it already was.

I suspect this loose piece is a cause of some of the noises I've been hearing. In fact, it might be the last piece needed to eliminate them completely.

However, this piece doesn't seem to just snap in like some other pieces. It is just loose. So question for folks: how do I tighten this piece up appropriately? I'll go ask a dealer to do it if I must, but they seem both slow and incompetent so I'd rather do the solution myself if it's easy enough.

 

I checked a 2024 ES 350 Ultra Luxury and , like yours, the left rear side curtain assembly was initially loose. (The right rear side curtain assembly was not loose when I checked it.)

According to lexusguide.net Lexus ES (XZ10) Service Manual's Rear Door - Disassembly's procedure 16. REMOVE REAR SIDE CURTAIN ASSEMBLY (w/ Rear Door Sunshade) (scroll down the page about half way) associated illustration shows that assembly is attached with two clips with slide down and pull out direction arrows for removing it. However, the Rear Door - Reassembly's procedure 34. INSTALL REAR SIDE CURTAIN ASSEMBLY (w/ Rear Door Sunshade) (scroll down the page about three fourths of the way) associated illustration shows only a push in arrow to set the clips for reattaching the assembly to the door.

Given that, I thought perhaps the clips holding the right rear side curtain assembly may not have been completely engaged, so I proceeded to jiggle the assembly up and down a bit while pressing in on the assembly on the places where the clips should be located. I'm not exactly sure what specific movement did the trick, but I heard a "click" sound and the assembly was no longer loose like shown in your video. (It didn't require a lot of pressing in force. Just a moderately firm force with a thumb sufficed.) Although the reassembly illustration doesn't show it as needed, I'm guessing there needs to be a small up or down nudge to get one or both clips in a sweet spot to fully engage the clip mechanism.

Suggest you try what I did to see if that will fix your loose right rear side curtain assembly issue.

 

Awesome response! I'd give you three upvotes if I could.

I tried what you said, and it didn't work. So I re-removed the door panel and actually took off the piece. There are two clips that clip directly into the door. Both those appear to work. However, there are also two hard-plastic clips on the right side (the side that on mine is loose) that kind of snap in, presumably to keep it stable. Both of them appear to have been slightly broken off, perhaps during a removal or some other work. Therefore, mine will never be stable as is.

My options were: 1) order a new part and install it myself. 2) beg the dealership to swap it out without blaming me (difficult because I have some soft tape inside the door panel to help reduce creaks), 3) to use the aforementioned tape to stick that trim piece back on along with the working clips and hope it's sufficient.

So I chose #3. So far so good. The piece no longer moves or rattles. I have yet to drive it, but we'll see if the intermittent noises are still there. I am cautiously optimistic!

As for option #2, I've had my windows tinted, and I removed the door panel myself to try to find sources of squeaks, and the dealership has twice replaced that door panel. So all told, any one of those could have been what caused that piece to break. When I removed it, it was quite clearly loose upon removal, so I don't think I did it, and I certainly didn't hear anything that sounded like breaking. So it's either the tint shop or the dealership. But no way to know for sure. If I have to shell out a little money to get it fixed (ie, go with option #1) I'll be fine with that as long as the noises stop. But here's hoping I don't have to. Fingers crossed.