Okay, I have a rattle somewhere in the dash of my '05 that's successfully eluded all of my attempts to identify and fix it for over a year. At around 2700 RPM I hit the natural frequency of whatever it is and it comes alive. I've replaced the brackets holding the brake line along the upper firewall and stuffed foam behind it...I'm 95% sure that's no longer it (although it did rattle as well previously).

I think it's the automatic climate control vent doors. I can hear one make an odd vibrating noise when it actuates, and it's almost the right frequency. Of course I'd prefer not to have to disassemble the entire dash.

Anyone have a similar issue and a fix that's just not obvious? I've been as far up inside the dash as I could get from underneath and from the center console while installing my stereo...the only thing I found was a cable connection that had come out of a bulkhead mount, and it wasn't in a position to make any noise anyway.

If not...how hard is it really to get to the doors? I'm capable of pulling everything apart, I'd just rather not spend an afternoon doing it.

I still can't fix this. Surely someone out there has had an annoyingly persistent rattle in a place I haven't looked! Here are the things I've done so far that haven't fixed it:

- Glued the power intake valve in place
- Checked and snugged all engine covers
- Stuffed foam and rubber damping behind the brake line that runs along the top of the firewall
- Moved the grounding wire clamp on the ~1" line below that brake line that looked like it could be hitting the firewall
- Reached waaaay up into the dashboard and stuffed foam between the windshield defogger air channel and the plastic pieces around it...the one loose bit that I thought must be close
- Checked every wire harness and plastic connector I could reach under the dash...found one that came loose from its bulkhead clip but that wasn't it

I have only one more thing to look at right now before removing the instrument cluster - the white disk in the middle of the air valve for the A/C unit in the driver's side footwell seems to move about easily on its axle. But...cycling through its settings with the A/C controller doesn't change the noise so this is unlikely.

Aside from all of that, how hard is it to remove the cluster if that's the next step? It looks like it's just held in place by four screws and some clips after removing the lower dash and possibly the center cluster.

I finally fixed most of this. A lot of it was coming from the wires behind the stereo and center console. It was probably exacerbated by my aftermarket head unit with two USB ports, an aux port, etc., but it wasn't that different.

$3 craft store solution: I wrapped the loose cables and whatnot in felt and zip tied them. That didn't quite get all of it so I went further and stuck adhesive foam sheets all over the plastic and metal that anything behind the center column could hit.

I still have some buzzing around 2700-2900 RPM but not all the time. That seems to be the natural frequency of the engine/dash combination so its been nearly impossible to completely fix. But...this is really close.

i have this problem also so i just turn up the radio