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From the day I got my car, I had a minor buzzing or some might consider slight rattling noise that was coming from the dash board area; it would come and go. Then after about half a year, this buzzing would be constant when I go from 0-30mph or so. And since my city's speed limit is 25mph, it was torture to hear that buzzing. It was difficult to locate the noise. I tried to press/hold on the dash board at various spots to see if the buzzing would stop. I drove like a noob, hanging onto the steering wheel just to get closer to the noise. I searched through these forums for other owners who might have the same issue I was having and saw Corrado had done some work on his passenger side speaker on his Ex-NX. This gave me the idea that my buzzing noise was likely coming from the speaker covers. Initially, I was only going to do my driver side dash speaker cover. But you know what? If I'm going to do this, I might as well do ALL of the speaker covers on the dash to ensure no stones are left unturned.
Tools: Plastic trim removing tools
Materials: Dr. Scholl's moleskin (I don't have fabric tape), Self adhesive sound, vibration absorbing felt pads (
). I would have used Molefoam, but I ran out from the last rattling fix project I did with the subwoofer,. And since these are advertised as sound and vibration absorbing, I just went for it. Judging from the finished product, it was a good investment.
First I pried out the driver speaker cover with the plastic trim removal tools. It took a while, because I was trying my best to not damage anything. After struggling for a while, I just applied more strength and the cover came off. I looked at the speaker cover and saw that Lexus did have fabric tape on most of the areas that might rattle.
Before picture, driver side speaker cover.
Before picture, bare bones driver side speaker area.
I used what Corrado did for his as a reference, but made some slight adjustments.
After picture, added moleskin to the tabs that Lexus didn't fabric taped. Also applied the sound deadening felt pad near the bottom left corner.
After picture, added 2 sound deadening felt pads at the top and 1 pad that runs across inbetween the two screws at the top.
Once that was done, I was able to put the cover back on without much fuss. And yes, it didn't change the appearance at all, the cover sits flushed with the dash board.
Next up was the center speaker cover. This one was the easiest and no removal tool was required. I just lifted the cover from the top and pulled up.
Before picture center speaker cover. Lexus did not apply any fabric tape at all.
Before picture center speaker area. As you can see, this is also bare bones.
For the center speaker, I tried to remove the wire, it didn't come off easily. I was able to work around it.
After picture, center speaker cover. Applied moleskin on all the tabs. Applied the sound deadening felt pad on the top of the cover (on top of the center tab). I also noticed the wire area had a little play, so I wrapped it up with moleskin as well.
After picture, center speaker area. I applied the sound deadening felt pads on the 4 corners making sure that it wrapped the top lip. Also, since I noticed the wire had play, I applied the felt pad around the location where the wire is coming from.
The center cover went back in as easily as it came off.
Next up, passenger side, which is the same as the driver side, however with the experience of removing the driver side, the time was much quicker.
Before picture, passenger side. Same as the driver's side. Lexus had fabric tape at certain areas.
Before picture, passenger side. Same as driver's side. Naked.
After picture, passenger side cover. Did the same as I had done on the driver's side.
After picture, passenger side. Did the same as I had done with the driver's side.
Here is the result. After putting the covers back on, I took the car out for a spin trying to reproduce the buzzing rattling noise. IT WAS GONE. Looking back at it, I believe the noise was coming from the center speaker cover, where the wire had play and the hole where the wire came from didn't have anything to prevent noise. I had driven my car earlier in the day before the project. I had also driven the car with the driver speaker cover off as a test, and both drives still had the buzzing noise. Since I had wrapped the wire with moleskin and applied the felt pad around the area where the wire came from, it is highly likely the reason why I don't hear buzzing from the dash board anymore.
Nice, thanks for sharing. I also have a buzzing-like noise that I haven't been able to determine if it's rattling, etc. or something off with one of the speakers itself
Dash board speaker covers rattling, buzzing noise fix project.
