Creaky Dash

October 9, 2013

I'm new here so I hope I am posting in the right place.

A bit of background before I start.

I purchased my Avensis 2.2 D4D a little over 2 years ago, I was looking for a big family car which I could put a lot of miles on. I regularly commute from West Scotland to the East midlands and I wanted a comfortable but reliable motor for the job and so far the Avensis has proven to be excellent if a little boring.

I have had no major problems infact I took it in for a service yesterday and apart from the oil filter welding itself to the housing there were no other problems. and I have put over 30000 miles on her in 2 years.

However, for almost a year now I have noticed a rattle / creaking sound coming from the drivers side dashboard.

I have spent hours trying to work furniture polish into every joint to no avail! if anything it is getting worse. I have tightened every screw I can find.

I'm reluctant to call this a problem as it's more of an irritation, but I was close to buying a Lexus IS 220 SE but I'm afraid to say that this has majorly put me off at the moment.

Has anybody else suffered from this?? And more importantly have you been able to remedy it?

Any help or advice would be massively appreciated!

Thanks very much in advance!

October 9, 2013

Turn your music up loud... :)

October 9, 2013

It can be a bit of a bugger tracking down those creaks. I dragged my brother on a long cruise once so he could try and figure out where some of the creaks were coming from in my Yaris while I was driving it! :lol:

Managed to track most of them down, and just wedged them in with bits of paper or card!

It's usually where two panels are just slightly rubbing against each other. A lot of the creaks I had were very temperature dependent!

October 9, 2013

I must admit that on longer journeys once the car has warmed up a little, it tends to lessen or stop.

It's really irritating me!! I suppose I'll keep hunting and the tip about wedging the joints sounds a good idea also.

Thanks a lot!

October 12, 2013

I have removed the dashboard of my RAV twice. There is a helluva a lot of plastic behind there, with heater ducts; cables; and countless screws. Any one of these being slightly loose could cause a wee creak. If it lessens when warmed up, then I'd think along the lines of the ducts and heater mounting.

However, noises can travel up the steering column, or along things like clutch pedal etc etc.

I have a squeak on operating the clutch on one of my RAVs - annoying. We traced it - not to the clutch pedal mechanism - but to a linkage within the gearbox.