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Thread: Rattle from rear

  1. #1
    Senior Member AlphaMicra's Avatar
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    Rattle from rear

    I should start by admitting that my Micra is a fun, money saving daily commuter for me, so besides the 15" alloys for summer tires, a few stickers, and perhaps a couple of extra gauges in the near future (temperature and voltage), I did buy this as a cheap thrill daily commuter to stick it to Wynn's carbon tax and to allow me to save money for the more important things in life without needing to work a ton of overtime to pay it off (ie; road trip to Florida).

    Recently, I've noticed a rattling sound from the rear. I'm now well past 70,000 km. I'm guessing it's the heat shield, and I'll be taking it in to get it checked out. I should note that it's still on its first set of everything, except air filter, oil filter, oil, and washer fluid. I'm not exactly easy on this car, especially considering I taught my son to drive stick with it. Still, if it is the heat shield, this concerns me. The heat shield was an issue with my original 1990 Micra, and I ended up driving without one.

    I want to know what others think about this. When I bought GM, I'd be changing the rotors and pads at 40,000km, and start dealing with warranty issues like a throttle position sensor right about now. I guess a heat shield shouldn't be that big of a deal, except I would have thought they would have sorted that out by now. Then there's the loss of power at WOT, which honestly doesn't happen that much, and hasn't happened in a while, and cannot be reproduced. Is Japanese quality overstated, or is this an anomaly? I just wanted to open a discussion to see where we're at in 2016.



    In our culture obsessed with absurd excess, the Nissan Micra is my counterculture car of choice.
    Be sure to visit my blog at mymicra.com!

        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2015 Micra SV manual: 6.4 L/100 km ... 44.3 mpg (Imp) ... 15.7 km/L ... 36.9 mpg (US) ...


  2. #2
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    Quote Originally Posted by AlphaMicra View Post
    I should start by admitting that my Micra is a fun, money saving daily commuter for me, so besides the 15" alloys for summer tires, a few stickers, and perhaps a couple of extra gauges in the near future (temperature and voltage), I did buy this as a cheap thrill daily commuter to stick it to Wynn's carbon tax and to allow me to save money for the more important things in life without needing to work a ton of overtime to pay it off (ie; road trip to Florida).

    Recently, I've noticed a rattling sound from the rear. I'm now well past 70,000 km. I'm guessing it's the heat shield, and I'll be taking it in to get it checked out. I should note that it's still on its first set of everything, except air filter, oil filter, oil, and washer fluid. I'm not exactly easy on this car, especially considering I taught my son to drive stick with it. Still, if it is the heat shield, this concerns me. The heat shield was an issue with my original 1990 Micra, and I ended up driving without one.

    I want to know what others think about this. When I bought GM, I'd be changing the rotors and pads at 40,000km, and start dealing with warranty issues like a throttle position sensor right about now. I guess a heat shield shouldn't be that big of a deal, except I would have thought they would have sorted that out by now. Then there's the loss of power at WOT, which honestly doesn't happen that much, and hasn't happened in a while, and cannot be reproduced. Is Japanese quality overstated, or is this an anomaly? I just wanted to open a discussion to see where we're at in 2016.
    MAINTAINENCE 4- OIL CHANGE

    BRAKE SERVICE
    AIR FILTER
    BATTERY SERVICE
    -SEARCH BG
    DIFFERENTIAL SERVICE
    TRANSFER CASE- ATF

    These are the things that should be addressed every 48000 km. the sound tends be heat shields when rattling in the rear. Brake services will double the life of your brakes, battery service takes car of the smurf village on your battery/ diff and transfer should be checked every service.
    SMUTT155

  3. #3
    Senior Member AlphaMicra's Avatar
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    Whatever it is you're smoking, I wouldn't mind a hit...

    In our culture obsessed with absurd excess, the Nissan Micra is my counterculture car of choice.
    Be sure to visit my blog at mymicra.com!

        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2015 Micra SV manual: 6.4 L/100 km ... 44.3 mpg (Imp) ... 15.7 km/L ... 36.9 mpg (US) ...


  4. #4
    Senior Member L1ghtninchris's Avatar
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    my heat shield went loose long time ago and dealer replaced and fixed it for free under warranty. The heat shield is very thin and not held up very well i work in Canadian Tire and seem under my car. one of the mechanics i work with fixed it with better washers and nut. it was loose again lol.

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    Senior Member Vapor's Avatar
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    I have new Micra with just over 1500km's I've had a rattle in the rear since new. I've been under my car a dozen times and have not noticed anything out of place. I'm pretty sure I checked the heat shield and it was secure, but now I want to double check because it is annoying as hell and want to figure it out and fix it. In my head I was thinking it sounded like a sticky shock, but bouncing the car up and down by pushing down on the rear bumper from the outside I cannot recreate the noise.

  6. #6
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    I had this same rattle coming from the drivers side rear (passengers side for your wrong way around cars )
    I could hear it when setting of from lights etc,I then found I could make it do it at a certain rpm so was sure it was the heat shield but it wasn't. Took me ages to find it and it turned out to be loose screws where the rear bumper fastens to the quarter panel. They wouldn't tighten up (just went round and round) so took them out and put a washer or two on them so they didn't wind in as far and they tightened up and the rattle stopped. Worth a try!

  7. #7
    Senior Member Howie's Avatar
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    Yep! I had mine replaced after it fell off around 18000 km. The one nearest to the fuel tank where it goes up and over the rear axle.

        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2015 Micra S automatic: 7.9 L/100 km ... 35.7 mpg (Imp) ... 12.6 km/L ... 29.7 mpg (US) ...


  8. #8
    Senior Member AlphaMicra's Avatar
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    So I just found out that the Micra has the worst warranty of any new car today; mine expired when I soared on past 60,000km; but the dealership had a service "Deal" of $160 to do an oil change, look at my brakes, and do a tire rotation. I can't imagine how much they'd want to fleece me for the heat shield rattle, so I thought I'd take a crack at it. I backed it up on the ramps in the garage, got under, and had a look.

    Name:  heatshield1.jpg
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    What we have here is an example of something that's been engineered to fail. Thin aluminum heat shield held in place with nothing more than aluminum bolts. The Micra is a cheap, quick car that's deserving of a cheap, quick fix. I looked around for something aluminum that I could use (dissimilar metals can cause accelerated corrosion), and found a leftover end piece from a tile job I did in the kitchen recently. I measured the distance between the bolts; roughly 3 1/4 inches, which worked fine. I snipped off a piece, and recycled the aluminum bolts that were still in place:
    Name:  heatshield2.jpg
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    Time will tell if this will hold up, but in theory the distribution of force is much better than it was originally; I'll just have to be sure to spray it good with rust-proofing spray next winter.

    In our culture obsessed with absurd excess, the Nissan Micra is my counterculture car of choice.
    Be sure to visit my blog at mymicra.com!

        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2015 Micra SV manual: 6.4 L/100 km ... 44.3 mpg (Imp) ... 15.7 km/L ... 36.9 mpg (US) ...


  9. The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to AlphaMicra For This Useful Post:

    Daox (03-28-2016),Wynter (03-28-2016)

  10. #9
    Administrator Daox's Avatar
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    Looks like it'll hold to me!

    Same thing happened on my Prius... but its a 2004.

  11. #10
    Senior Member LilGeckos's Avatar
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    Nice fix. That should hold up for quite some time. Funny why they used such small washers in the first place. Like you said, engineered to fail.



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