So I’m soon going to be in the market for an 08/09 3GS & I’ve been sifting through the forums to gather as much info as possible.

I’ve seen a TON of complaints on the whole dash rattle situation. For those of you who have experienced this and it’s been on ongoing problem, assuming you know nothing about the 4GS, has it been enough to make you say … I should’ve bought something else?

I hate to drop the money only to be annoyed daily by such an issue that they can’t or won’t fix. I don’t want to be sitting in my car feeling like I’m ready to rip the dash out at any moment

Thoughts? Thanks…

 

I can only speak for my car but it's not as bad as people make it sound. A couple crackles when driving over rough roads but nothing I can't live with.

Plus you live in FL, and all of these things are pronounced by sub zero temperatures which you'll never have.

 

mine started like that then it developed to just about any shift in the suspension caused a dash noise. i took mine to the dealer and havent had a problem since. had it fixed in dec of 08.

 

The car you test drive will either have the rattle or not. But you won't find out driving on smooth roads. You will need to test the car on roads which a Porsche or an M3 would find distinctly uncomfortable. Rough roads that should have been resurfaced 10 years ago. If you test on those roads and get nothing, your car will be fine.

 

i only had one bad (very bad) squeak on my dash, ended up it was the windshield and they replaced the whole thing, nothing anymore

and after hearing all the squeaks and rattles in my bmw, i don't think my gs is that bad

 

I have the rattle issue, in pretty much all temperatures, and yes, I hate it. That said however, I'm pretty critical and most of my passengers can't even hear it.

Never once have I wished I had bought something else though. I've had my GS for three years, and I still look forward to driving it every day. I'm guessing that I'm like most folks on this forum in that if it bothered me that much, I would just get another car.

As mentioned previously, your best bet is to take it for a rough test drive to see if you have a rattler and if so, if it really bothers you.

 

not true.

mine didn't have rattles brand new on test drive, even on poor roads.

over time, ticking noises started popping up.




they replaced the whole windshield? or the whole dashboard?

 

Yeah but she's looking at buying a used one so you would think the rattles would have appeared after a couple of years.

 

whole windshield. ended up the windshield was not installed correctly at factory it seems and was squeaking. replaced the windshield and it's all good ever since.

well, of course, while the windshield was out, my tech also put more insulation and checked the clips on the dash (easy access), so maybe that helped too

 

^ Interesting. Wonder how bad it would be to take off the front windshield and place it back again? is that even possible??

 

^^You need special tools to take off a windshield. Definitely not something to try yourself.

 

i guess it's just like changing windshield (after rock chips/cracks). the tech said no reason to risk the windshield being the problem, so might as well get a new one

 

My GS inly has about 5000 miles on it and it has a bit of a rattle behind the center speaker on the dash near the windshield...it seems to be very temperature related. Sometimes when its cold it rattles. Not that bad though I have driven some real rattly cars in the past so this one is a breeze.

 

The other thing to bear in mind is that many cars have rattles. I have recently driven a Benz C350 with rattles, and that is a solidly built car. My guess is it was caused by a mod.

 

Rattles obviously bother some more than others. I say pick your battles wisely. Would you rather have a car that's rattle free but unreliable? Or a reliable car with some rattles? I chose the latter.