DIY: Using sorbothane to fix Touring subwoofer rattle

Let me start by thanking the OP.

I just used the sorbothane to fix my back deck rattles. Rather than doing 4 at the corners of the brake light, I used 2 at the very bottom so they just peak over the black edge trim of the window. I then attached one to a 1.5" piece of some foam weather stripping that I had that was about 1/2" thick and 1" wide and pushed one of those down far enough to be invisible keeping the sorbothane side up, roughly halfway between the brake light and the C-pillar on both sides of the back deck. It mashed down quite a lot and I could see that it had enough pressure to push the deck panel down a bit.

Now with the sub set at neutral, there's no rattle at all. A smidge of harmonic buzz that's barely (VERY barely. I have picky ears.) perceptible, but that seems to be the nature of mounting a 10" sub into a piece of sheet metal and covering it with plastic. It's certainly now on par with most other 25-30k cars with a sub, rather than the BRRTT! BRRTT! farting sound it had before.

Disclaimer: I tried this out with 2 bass heavy tracks that I like (I mostly favor Radiohead, QOTSA, Guitar God stuff, audiobooks about ancient empires, etc.) with the bass at neutral and it sounds just fine, with a nice thump. Cranking the sub to full power, and I got some rattles on the tracks. It's not 100%, but most premium OEM sound systems (in the price range) will crack up when the sub is at full power and wangin' Method Man.

This is a solution for those of us that have a more rock/classical/country taste in music, that's a bit less easy to spot.

I'm hopeful this solves the course pavement harmonic buzz I've been getting back there as well.

spexicola said:

Let me start by thanking the OP.

I just used the sorbothane to fix my back deck rattles. Rather than doing 4 at the corners of the brake light, I used 2 at the very bottom so they just peak over the black edge trim of the window. I then attached one to a 1.5" piece of some foam weather stripping that I had that was about 1/2" thick and 1" wide and pushed one of those down far enough to be invisible keeping the sorbothane side up, roughly halfway between the brake light and the C-pillar on both sides of the back deck. It mashed down quite a lot and I could see that it had enough pressure to push the deck panel down a bit.

Now with the sub set at neutral, there's no rattle at all. A smidge of harmonic buzz that's barely (VERY barely. I have picky ears.) perceptible, but that seems to be the nature of mounting a 10" sub into a piece of sheet metal and covering it with plastic. It's certainly now on par with most other 25-30k cars with a sub, rather than the BRRTT! BRRTT! farting sound it had before.

Disclaimer: I tried this out with 2 bass heavy tracks that I like (I mostly favor Radiohead, QOTSA, Guitar God stuff, audiobooks about ancient empires, etc.) with the bass at neutral and it sounds just fine, with a nice thump. Cranking the sub to full power, and I got some rattles on the tracks. It's not 100%, but most premium OEM sound systems (in the price range) will crack up when the sub is at full power and wangin' Method Man.

This is a solution for those of us that have a more rock/classical/country taste in music, that's a bit less easy to spot.

I'm hopeful this solves the course pavement harmonic buzz I've been getting back there as well.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the feedback. In addition to the four bumpers around the break light, I've removed the foam that I had between the glass and the deck and put in four more bumpers. I've found that having the bumpers on top and the foam underneath the break light has resulted in zero buzzing or rattling regardless of content/volume/bass settings. Here is a drawing of where I put the bumpers.

hondo said:

Thanks for the feedback. In addition to the four bumpers around the break light, I've removed the foam that I had between the glass and the deck and put in four more bumpers. I've found that having the bumpers on top and the foam underneath the break light has resulted in zero buzzing or rattling regardless of content/volume/bass settings. Here is a drawing of where I put the bumpers.

Click to expand...

Now I'm just chasing the other rattles. There's about 3-4 other spots in the car that intermittently rattle with the road vibrations. I'm about to pull the interior panels off and go nuts with foam wrapping wiring harnesses and Tesa taping every contact point. I'm getting really sick of the rattling going on. I'm in my car 2-3 hours a day and I'm slowly going crazy.

hondo said:

Slightly, you would have to look for them. You can see them in the last picture. It's actually less visible than the foam I was using before.

Click to expand...

Maybe the plastic cover on mine is lower than yours? Tried the 1/2" diameter linked and it doesn't even touch the window. Mines also a Civic sedan Touring.

First post; Made an account specifically to thank Hondo and everyone really for this DIY fix.

My experience with it (tl;dr below):

2017 Civic Touring here, Immediately noticed the sub rattle after purchasing and felt a little nauseous that I didn't check during my test drive. Did some reading online (saw this thread) and another thread that mentioned Honda was doing padding for the housing in the trunk to help "solve" this problem. I called my dealership - Told them what was going on, no questions asked they checked - saw the service notes for this problem and proceded to put padding in the brake housing (I believe that's what its called).

So IMO your first step if you're needing to fix this sub problem: Go to your dealer, get the padding inside (they won't do the Sorbothane or even know what that means. At least mine didn't)

Got my car back, went for a cruise, cranked the tunes and it certainly was better however that rear window vibrates like something fierce. Put up with it for a while, called my local audio shop to see if they carried anything similar to as described here, which they did not. They just suggested putting weather stripping down the sides and that didn't sound like a classy fix to me.

So I went to amazon.ca and ordered the little suckers, they came in and were much smaller than I realized!

It took a bit of Honda Civic Pilates but I was able to reach back there and get them in, using a pair of mini-pliers my wife has for crafting and jamming my hand between the top of the brake cover and the rear window to increase the gap just a bit.



Apologies for the giant picture - and the bad lighting but you can see here how far I was able to get the bottom ones. You can also see I lost one! haha, Ill have to get a paper clip and lance it and pull it out when I get motivated again.

Results: Outstanding! My audio setup right now is as follows EQ: Treble, Bass, Mid is all just set to Zero [That is to say the "middle"], I fade 1 notch to the rear, Balance is 0 and sub is max. My music taste is Metal (Anything from Grindcore all the way to hair metal), I leave the EQ flat as I read somewhere to "Trust" the mixers" and I have always just faded back one notch for treble control. Which I was told by an audio guy is old school and not necessary but I've always enjoyed the sound.

Everything pumps really hard and well, The sound is rich and even on a couple of bands that have the bass dialed right into the freq of the sub the rattle is non-existant. The only thing I have noticed is the odd song (and I do mean rarely) gets the slightest vibration noise. Different than the rattle most certainly, I would imagine that doing as Hondo as done and throwing a few around the edges of the rear glass would solve this. Something for me to do when I get motivated again.

Main purpose of this post was just to say thank you for this thread, I absolutely love this car and having the audio dialed in makes me very very happy with this purchase.

TL;DR
- Go to honda get the foam in the brake housing
- Buy the sorbothane and listed
- Get some small pliers and wedge em in.


Thanks again,
All the best.

Thank you for this! I just purchased two sets off ebay since OP's amazon link wasn't available. Will update with my own experience after installing!

https://www.ebay.com/itm/4-SORBOTHANE-HEMISPHERE-1-2-12mm-VIBRATION-FEET-MINI-PODS-SMALL-TINY-SOFT-30D/371267361953?epid=1546473112&hash=item5671425ca1:g:awgAAOxyA4ZRJdmd&rmvSB=true

EDIT: Wow! I ordered 8 and spread them out evenly and it worked like a charm. Zero rattling even on the most intense songs and at volumes I wouldn't actually ever turn it up to. I just put each one on the end of a flathead screwdriver and got it deep enough to where it made contact with both the plastic and glass. Was a bit awkward at first but worked like a charm. Thank you!!

I went with 2 x 1" pods where the brake light meets the windshield, did the job

Sorry for the bump, but I just wanted to let everyone know my bottom 2 melted after about 2 years. Here's the worse one, which actually started to slide down. I have no idea how I'll be able to clean the windshield off...