After about 4 months of not being able to identify the source of my rattles , I'm relieved to finally to report that I finally found them last night. It turns out that the bottom of the interior door panels was rubbing/vibrating where they join/seal to the metal door frame. To confirm this, I have inserted a few very narrow cardboard shims and so far the rattles are gone. Two things - 1) hope this helps anyone that is having trouble identifying this "rattle," and 2) what is the permanent fix? The car was scheduled to go in next week for some other warranty work and I was planning on having them try to identify the rattles, but held out little hope and was prepared for the standard "we could not duplicate" (ultimately why I was trying to find them myself). Anyone know the real fix? Should not have to use cardboard shims in a $30,000 car with 3,700 on the odometer.

 

The dealer will use felt tape in between the panel and the door to quiet this. This is standard procedure for BMW/MINI.

 

My dealer is telling me "Well, you know, these aren't known for being quiet cars"
My response: "Well you might want to have a conversation with your sales staff, because they sold it to me as a quality vehicle".

I've got so many rattles that you can hear it on the other side of the phone when I'm driving down the interstate, and I just rolled 4,000mi on the odo. Both door panels with the standard rattle, and one right behind the drivers head, I believe near the rear speaker grill.

 

Meh rattle give it character.

 

It seems that Lesspeople_morerobots just needs to sell his/her car. If its truly "the worst car Ive ever owned"- why do you keep it?

 

A guy on the local board took in his new coupe for some rattles. They found one loose clip and one missing clip which they fixed both. You may or may not get the same results from your dealer.

 

I took mine in recently for its 15,000mi service checkup and mentioned door rattles and clutch chatter while I was there. They found "broken clips" in the doors that caused the rattles and "fixed them". So far it sounds good, but I haven't spent a ton of time with the car since I'm more of a weekend driver.

As far as my clutch chatter/rattle goes, they couldn't duplicate it, which is BS. I'll mention it again and have a MA accompany me next time I bring it in.

 

ditch the runflat tires and 70% of the rattles and shakes go away too

 

I love my MINI, but the rattles were driving me batty! I'm thrilled it was an easy "fix." Just took me a while to finally pinpoint.

 

Maybe I'm too picky, but I had a couple of rattles that I had the dealer look for too. In the end, it turned out to be behind the headliner in a couple of areas. The dealer removed the headliner, made sure everything was padded and attached well, and reinstalled the headliner. This DID take 2 or 3 visits until they REALLY went after the rattles. The last time, they kept the car for a day or two. But the problem was solved and I love my Clubby. No squeaks, rattles or ANY bad noises.
Sometimes it just takes a little patience with the dealer.

Love it.

 

Funny you say that I put mine back on and 70% of mine went away.

 

Because its brand new, and I refuse to take a $5k hit when its THEIR responsibility to make sure the car starts when I put the key in. If you think thats an unreasonable expectation for a $25k+ car, then we simply won't ever agree.

 

That will probably be my first "mod". Good idea!

 

High Expectation for a car that starts at $20k. It isn't a luxury car. On top of the fact that it has a very tight suspension out of the factory rattle happen.

 

I put away my runflats and put on the Blizzacks. It a completely different car. It is quiter with the snow tires than the run flats AND "70% of the rattles dissappeared"!

 

You too could switch to non-run flats and save up to 70 percent on rattles. Just dial 1-800-GEICO! Err... Visit 1-800-Tirerack?