Cheap, Permanent Touring Rattle Fix - Insulation Foam

chuck12

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Just did mine. Amazing. Thanks inv4zn! Cranked up a tone generator I have on my phone and pushed it in till vibration gone. It was a tight fit, maybe only needed 15%. I'll report back after a few weeks in the summer 90F (30C) heat here.
So I have used this fix for a full month, blasting my music. AMAZING. I only had to push it in a bit more 2 days after installing it and haven't touched it since. The sound system is bumpin. When I take the car in for an oil change I will take it out and complain about the rattle again. I need to keep on them to fix it properly.
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White Touring

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Gonna try this when i get home thanks bro!
 

theevanshow

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Did this today. Worked very well. I will say my foam sheet from the home depot was ~25 mm thick, not 30, but it worked fine. I'm pretty happy. There must be another spot or two that rattle, but maybe 4/5 of the rattling is gone.
 
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Thank you OP, for this post. It has improved the audio system tremendously.

I went to home depot this morning and purchased the required materials for around CDN$13 before tax. The 2' x 2' (25mm thick) foam square set me back CDN$6.99 and the higher quality 3M super 33+ electrical tape was about CDN$6. If done right, you will have lots of foam board remaining and could probably make at least 20 more wedges if you wanted to.

To make the wedge, I first cut out the 70mm x 70mm piece and marked out the prescribed dimensions with a pen. To avoid confusion, I then scribbled lines in the areas of the block that were not to be included in the final product.

To cut, I used a long retractable blade and a hobby knife for more precision cutting. Take your time and make sure you cut straight or your wedge will look a bit lopsided. If it turns out a little odd, don't worry about it. You can always layer it and reshape it a bit with electrical tape.

After cutting the foam, you should have a piece resembling a door stopper made of pink cheese. Now it's time to wrap it up in your choice of electrical tape. I chose a higher quality tape with a broader operating range (-18 C to 105 C or 0F to 220F) but you can use any type you choose. If a thicker, high quality tape is desired for whatever reason, I would go with 3M super 88.

I just installed the wedge and it works great. Can I say this is a miracle cure?!!
 
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inv4zn

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Glad to see it's working for a lot of people!

It really does hold up quite well, and if some rattle comes back, just shove it in farther, and if it stops being effective, as @darthshoppingmaul said, you have enough material left over to make 20 more!

Maybe I should brand and sell these..lol
 


2016TouringSLC

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Glad to see it's working for a lot of people!
Yes, thanks a million for what seems to be a permanent fix. You should sell these to forum members, or maybe sell the idea to Honda -- lot's cheaper than dealing with all of the complaints and the failed fixes the dealers have tried.

I got this to work using two hard rubber door stops (in the shape of a wedge). Played all of my torture-test songs and no rattle! Even cranked the Sub to max and while there was some distortion from the speaker, no noticeable rattles.

I was using an external sub and amp, but it took up so much room in the trunk. This is a great solution for those that want to keep the stock sub.
 

josby

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Thanks, this was so easy! $10 at Home Depot and about 15 minutes of my time once I got home and my rattle was solved! A few songs still rattle other parts of the deck, but this eliminated it for most songs and made me realize how many songs I'd been listening to at lower volumes than I wanted to just because of the rattle. I'm enjoying my stereo more now.
 

accordingtocivic

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Unless I'm seeing this wrong, that foam in the provided link looks like it comes in sheets of 1" thick by 2'x2'. How are you getting it to that more angled look with the 70x70x10?

EDIT: Never mind, I'm forgetting that 30mm is just over 1 inch thick. My conversions are going right out the back of my head. The picture of the foam before being taped up is not to scale (obviously) and so the thickness was throwing me off in that picture. Definitely gonna try this out tomorrow after class, will report results!
 
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accordingtocivic

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Unless I'm seeing this wrong, that foam in the provided link looks like it comes in sheets of 1" thick by 2'x2'. How are you getting it to that more angled look with the 70x70x10?

EDIT: Never mind, I'm forgetting that 30mm is just over 1 inch thick. My conversions are going right out the back of my head. The picture of the foam before being taped up is not to scale (obviously) and so the thickness was throwing me off in that picture. Definitely gonna try this out tomorrow after class, will report results!
I don't know why it has taken me so long to buy this material... over two weeks ago I said I would "try this out tomorrow after class, will report results"... hahaha. I'm on Spring Break right now, though, and will most likely actually do this on Friday after work. Looking forward to how well it will sound after this fix.
 

verbalj

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This method worked like a charm. The only time I've experienced the rattle was when I was listening to Metallica's Shortest Straw or Fight Fire with Fire. After this fix, no rattle. I had it up to volume 30 too.
 


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inv4zn

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OP chiming in, and it has held up exactly as it has since day 1.

I try to be humble but I really did an excellent job in this case :p
 

accordingtocivic

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I went ahead and tried this fix this morning. It was a little tougher putting the foam wedge inside by the brake light than I expected it to be, but after some gentle nudging and wiggle for a minute, it was definitely better. I played "Get Lucky" by Daft Punk while inserting the wedge, so I noticed a difference as soon as the wedge stuck.

Aside from the rattle itself being gone, there IS still some distortion evident at higher volumes with bigger bass, but it's really not a big enough deal to invest in another $200+ worth of subwoofer material for me.

Thanks @inv4zn!

EDIT: After getting back home from the movies last night, I decided to tinker with the sound settings again, and this time set the bass to the right more... HOLY SH*T. That made a HUGE difference with the sound and really brought out the lower end, surprisingly. I was in awe. :D
 
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PhotoVoltaire

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@inv4zn, you're a goddamn genius. I finally got around to trying this out on my Touring today, and it works like a charm!
 

cypress

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Unbelieveable that I am just now running into this thread!! This is the rattle that was driving me nuts! Now I know that I am not alone in this and to top it off there is a fix. Thank you I will be working on this during the weekend!
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