I’ve finally isolated a plastic cracking / rattling / sticking / clicking sound over bumps to where these two pieces of trim meet. You can recreate and temporarily exacerbate the problem by pushing on the vent side of the trim. Seems like that’s the piece that is flexing and making the noise when jutted against the larger dash trim.
Is it easy to slide out this vent assembly and try to wiggle it back into place? Has anyone successfully shut this noise up?
My mind goes to lining the gap with felt - but it almost feels like this is more of a very slight manufacturing tolerance discrepancy where the pieces are putting too much pressure on each other i.e. one of them is too large.
My life goal is to buy a reliable Japan-built car with no rattles. Only 5k miles on the clock and I’ve got the passenger seat rattle (dealership couldn’t solve), the windshield corner trim rattle (at least I can pop it off when it starts acting up, but no apparent solve), and the rear seats and/or hatch are now making noises over bumps. Maybe a Lexus next…
