Just some observations on plastic trim, fasteners and rattles. My wife asked if I could check out her car for rattles and noise. I took it for a test drive and yes it has some rattles, and yes it has 141k miles on it. Thinking "that's life, I'll check it out anyway".
The suspension and important stuff is tight. As I pounded on the fenders, bumper and whatnot, I did notice a lot of rattles associated with the plastic panels. A lot of the panels are held in place with plastic push rivets. What seemed characteristic was that most of the plastic push rivets were a little, to a lot loose.
Looking at it carefully, the push rivets snug by springing the plastic into the hole. Over time, the plastic deforms, looses its spring, and the push rivet becomes loose.
I also noticed where the plastic panel is bolted to the car, I was typically able to snug the bolt a 1/4 turn or so. I presume the plastic under the bolt, over time, deformed, reducing the clamping pressure.
As a side note, at work years ago we made a test rig to flex test cables (lots of cycles, back and forth, back and forth...) The test rig was bolted together and made of wood. I noticed that the bolts needed frequent tightening as the wood settled under the compression of the fastener. It's a similar phenomenon with plastic, yielding under stress over time and I believe the root source of rattles in plastic panels in modern cars.
Plastic push rivets are available at the auto parts store, I happened to have a box from an earlier job that fit. I also added a couple of screws to secure some panels that seemed to need a little something extra.
The suspension and important stuff is tight. As I pounded on the fenders, bumper and whatnot, I did notice a lot of rattles associated with the plastic panels. A lot of the panels are held in place with plastic push rivets. What seemed characteristic was that most of the plastic push rivets were a little, to a lot loose.
Looking at it carefully, the push rivets snug by springing the plastic into the hole. Over time, the plastic deforms, looses its spring, and the push rivet becomes loose.
I also noticed where the plastic panel is bolted to the car, I was typically able to snug the bolt a 1/4 turn or so. I presume the plastic under the bolt, over time, deformed, reducing the clamping pressure.
As a side note, at work years ago we made a test rig to flex test cables (lots of cycles, back and forth, back and forth...) The test rig was bolted together and made of wood. I noticed that the bolts needed frequent tightening as the wood settled under the compression of the fastener. It's a similar phenomenon with plastic, yielding under stress over time and I believe the root source of rattles in plastic panels in modern cars.
Plastic push rivets are available at the auto parts store, I happened to have a box from an earlier job that fit. I also added a couple of screws to secure some panels that seemed to need a little something extra.
