Rattling Sunroof - 09 Camry SE

I've had my 09 SE for about 6 months, there's 7k miles on it and I'm starting to hear some "rattling" noises inside the car.

My girlfriend would try to investigate when we make our occasional Atlantic City trip from Philadelphia.

She thinks it's the sunroof that rattles while I'm driving... it does make some sort of rattling noise when you move it back, but it's only sometimes.

The noise gets really bad sometimes too.

Thanks in advance for the input.

It's normal. Don't touch it!

Every cars have their own rattles. If not, just losen up some screws. ;)

not true at all...........it's cover under warranty. my shit rattles too i had toyota looked at it 3 times and can't seem to find a way to fix it. i think it's a lemon. and by the way my tl with sunroof don't rattle! i guess it's quality..........

Well, I heard people took their car in to fix the sunroof rattle, and ended up with more rattles.

Cause they had to take off the roof liner (or whatever it's called), and everything that's attached to it. Well, it's not their car, and when they put it back... go figure.

And I'm not saying all cars have sunroof rattles, but there is always a rattle in every car.

At least the ones I have driven:

02, 05 Civic
00, 02 Corolla
08, 09 Camry
05 Odyssey
05 Accord
03 Matrix
03 Vibe

gt-r is right but in this case if its brought to dealership and done right then it should go away. i heard of people going to dealership and they have no more noise in their cars. i had a friend working in service when i had my 07 and he fixed all the rattles in my car without making anything worse. but then i got the 09 and he left that job.

I should probably take my car into the dealership then. This rattling happens at any speed I'm driving but while I'm cruising at 60 mph it just doesn't stop.

My sunroof rattle happened during Spring and fall when temp. around 5c to 12c.
Brought back to dealer and they notice the noise, however when they take the roof liner off, they can't hear nothing. I am going back to dealer again when I can reproduce the noise during fall...

I started to hear the noise around June... =(

I have the same problem and it getting worse. I did do a serch on this problem and found a fourm for TSB-0089. I was going to take my car into the dealership and ask them to do this TSB, but then in that same fourm people said this about how the knocking sound gots worse.

If i do take my car in and the problem gets worse after work has been preformed, will the dealership continue to try to fix the problem? im curresntly around 35,000+ miles and i dont want to take the car in for repairs and then have the knocking sound get worse while im going over 36,000 miles and have the dealership tell me that they cant refix the problem because im over 36,000 miles.

It's normal. Don't touch it!

Every cars have their own rattles. If not, just losen up some screws. ;)

It is absolutely not normal. It is called poor workmanship/design. No car today should rattle, and it will only get worse. Loose screws will make it worse. What they need is gaskets between the plastic sections and so on. My 2010 SE Camry has rattling as well have taken it in once already. My trouble is it is bad when cool and not much when warm. Living in Canada this will be a major issue. I have sent an official complaint to Toyota Canada. As for all cars having rattling my 2001 Jetta never had any not one even after 260,000 kms..

Do not stop bugging them about this. It is a real problem and you have justification to have it fixed

worst comes to worst get a friend to help take down the liner and put something to help prevent the rattle. sometimes you need to fix some things. remember one thing. the car is made and tested in cali pretty much and in japan. they say they test it in all types of conditions but i doubt they do. so when u take it north to real cold weather things will happen. if we all file a complaint then they will fix it though.

Last winter I took my 08 LE in for the sun roof TSB. Rattled again in one day. Took it back, again quiet for one day. I now think it is the headliner making the rattling noise. The headliner is removed during the TSB process.

Rattle only happens in cold weather. I'll take it back in when it gets cold again in Georgia.

The cold weather dash rattle was fixed with thicker foam pads on the fittings. Maybe the headliner has similar fittings.

The reports about dealership nightmares are ABSOLUTELY CORRECT.

BEWARE -- BEWARE -- BEWARE -- BEWARE -- BEWARE -- BEWARE -- BEWARE!!

Listen to what has been written. "They have to take down the headliner." You bet.

So, how do they do that?

Well, it's held up there by your pillar posts, by the front overhead panels, and so on.

The bottom line is very simple here:

THEY HAVE TO TAKE YOUR ENTIRE INTERIOR APART in order to get in there. They may even wind up taking out the seats, in order to get in there so they can do something.

NEVER, EVER IN A FREAKING MILLION BILLION YEARS will they get that put back together as well as it was when it came out of the factory. Especially with the time constraints of doing warranty work.

This is the proverbial "do it yourself" job. Are you SURE it's the moonroof? Does it happen when the roof is open? Does it do it when the roof is closed? Might it only be the headliner? Might it be the "grab handles" above the doors? Check ALL of that out. Do what you can to try to mitigate things yourself. See that "trim ring" around the moonroof opening? It's just a soft piece of metal, wrapped in fabric, that you can try to "close more firmly" around the moonroof opening.

Open up the moonroof, and see if there's anywhere at the front end of the opening where you can put some cushioning weatherstripping or whatever. And so on.

But if you let your dealer TOUCH your interior, you are setting yourself up for a nightmare of rattles that you'll have to put up with so long as you own your car. Guaranteed. DO NOT LET THEM TOUCH IT!!!

All I can tell you is that I've learned it the hard way. Learn from my experience.

Thoots, :thumbsup:

That's what I'm trying to tell these guys... :o:

So let the rattles grow! Bwahahaha.. :rofl2:

The reports about dealership nightmares are ABSOLUTELY CORRECT.

BEWARE -- BEWARE -- BEWARE -- BEWARE -- BEWARE -- BEWARE -- BEWARE!!

Listen to what has been written. "They have to take down the headliner." You bet.

So, how do they do that?

Well, it's held up there by your pillar posts, by the front overhead panels, and so on.

The bottom line is very simple here:

THEY HAVE TO TAKE YOUR ENTIRE INTERIOR APART in order to get in there. They may even wind up taking out the seats, in order to get in there so they can do something.

NEVER, EVER IN A FREAKING MILLION BILLION YEARS will they get that put back together as well as it was when it came out of the factory. Especially with the time constraints of doing warranty work.

This is the proverbial "do it yourself" job. Are you SURE it's the moonroof? Does it happen when the roof is open? Does it do it when the roof is closed? Might it only be the headliner? Might it be the "grab handles" above the doors? Check ALL of that out. Do what you can to try to mitigate things yourself. See that "trim ring" around the moonroof opening? It's just a soft piece of metal, wrapped in fabric, that you can try to "close more firmly" around the moonroof opening.

Open up the moonroof, and see if there's anywhere at the front end of the opening where you can put some cushioning weatherstripping or whatever. And so on.

But if you let your dealer TOUCH your interior, you are setting yourself up for a nightmare of rattles that you'll have to put up with so long as you own your car. Guaranteed. DO NOT LET THEM TOUCH IT!!!

All I can tell you is that I've learned it the hard way. Learn from my experience.








Very funny post. Actually most of the techs that work on cars are much better the big fat Bob and Bill in good ole Kentucky(made the car) that have no education and got hired to put round pegs in square holes. Jesus wake up and smell the coffee it was stupid assembly workers that should of been pig farmers that messed this up!

These people that try and fix it are trained and make alot more than those morons that screwed it in the making. Toyota should of kept it being made in japan i guess. All the master mechs where I take my car are very well trained and know what they are doing. Yes they make mistakes but we all do.

Never forget this problem started with the maker in Kentucky. An do you want to take apart a car under warranty? That is crazy. Yes not under warranty do it, and if you have no idea what you are doing?

Oh and sorry you had such misery with a dealer, maybe find a better one.

It all comes down to us being screwed over and we need to stick together and complain in the right places.

Sadly I have no reason to not believe your lack of faith in your dealer, to many like that. An it saddens me. But just think of what you said in how complicated it is? A person with no training doing that will do it better? Ignoring any warranty?

All the master mechs where I take my car are very well trained and know what they are doing.

To requote myself:

"All I can tell you is that I've learned it the hard way. Learn from my experience."

The one-hundred-percent, absolute worst "car decision" I ever made in my entire life was to take my 2003 Corolla in for a little moonroof rattle. To read the whole story, see my post from a few years back, here:

http://www.toyotanation.com/forum/showthread.php?t=149086

Bottom line, they utterly couldn't POSSIBLY have done a lousier job. They couldn't diagnose SQUAT, they made a mess of my car, and they did such a poor job of slapping my interior together, it rattled constantly from that day forward.

To respond directly to the quote I've edited your message down to, above, I can only say this:

"Master mechs" will not be tearing your interior apart and slapping it back together again. Those guys will be working on transmissions and performing major engine work. The guys who will be ruining your interior for the entire life of your car will be newly-hired rookies, burned-out failures who never became "master mechs," and other derelicts who can't be trusted to work on a vehicle's running gear.

Follow the link and read my old post, to find out how competent these guys REALLY are. I'll never trust a dealer to touch my interior again.

NEVERMORE!

Good thing I haven't gone yet? lol

Well Thoots, I'm positive it IS the sunroof making the noises, and I also know about that long thin metal part that comes off easily too. It's not that part at least. =\

Good thing I haven't gone yet? lol

Well Thoots, I'm positive it IS the sunroof making the noises, and I also know about that long thin metal part that comes off easily too. It's not that part at least. =

Well, again, see what you can do on your own. Does the noise happen when it's closed, or when it's open? If it happens when it's closed, check out the front of the moonroof opening. The roof "rests" somehow -- get some weatherstripping cushioning in there. And so on. If it happens when the roof is open, is that such a big deal? I mean that in the kind of context that I had with my Corolla -- I probably would have VIRTUALLY NEVER really opened the roof to the point where it would make its noise.

Again, check out the headliner. Check out that trim ring around the moonroof opening. Open the roof and push and pull bits and pieces of the mechanism that you can reach while it's open -- see if you can isolate what's making the noise. If you can find it, try to silence it with some kind of cushioning that doesn't gum up the mechanism. If you can do that, it'll be one heck of a lot better than having the dealership hack away at your precious interior.

Good luck!

To requote myself:

"All I can tell you is that I've learned it the hard way. Learn from my experience."

The one-hundred-percent, absolute worst "car decision" I ever made in my entire life was to take my 2003 Corolla in for a little moonroof rattle. To read the whole story, see my post from a few years back, here:

http://www.toyotanation.com/forum/showthread.php?t=149086

Bottom line, they utterly couldn't POSSIBLY have done a lousier job. They couldn't diagnose SQUAT, they made a mess of my car, and they did such a poor job of slapping my interior together, it rattled constantly from that day forward.

To respond directly to the quote I've edited your message down to, above, I can only say this:

"Master mechs" will not be tearing your interior apart and slapping it back together again. Those guys will be working on transmissions and performing major engine work. The guys who will be ruining your interior for the entire life of your car will be newly-hired rookies, burned-out failures who never became "master mechs," and other derelicts who can't be trusted to work on a vehicle's running gear.

Follow the link and read my old post, to find out how competent these guys REALLY are. I'll never trust a dealer to touch my interior again.

NEVERMORE!

It is a shame when you quoted me you missed the part where I stated sorry that happened and i had no doubt it did.

My major point was yes you can get bad dealers with bad mechs. Even worse you have lousy non skilled assembly workers (and that is what they are). So we need to find a good garage to do our warranty work!

I would hope you never bought another car off of those people. Myself, with a car with less than 3000 miles I have no choice but to take it to them. An no I will not tolerate it.

So, once again I will clearly state! Sorry you had such a bad experience. But that is not necessarily what all will get. An if it is none should by this make of car.

Good thing I haven't gone yet? lol

Well Thoots, I'm positive it IS the sunroof making the noises, and I also know about that long thin metal part that comes off easily too. It's not that part at least. =

You are being talked into working on a car under warranty think about it. Once you pull it apart all bets are off! May I suggest you stay and watch what they do. It is your right. Just sign a waver over health and all the other BS.

Again i have no doubt about the sad stuff he went through. And it sickens me. Places like that should be shut down by Toyota.

I've had my 09 SE for about 6 months, there's 7k miles on it and I'm starting to hear some "rattling" noises inside the car.

My girlfriend would try to investigate when we make our occasional Atlantic City trip from Philadelphia.

She thinks it's the sunroof that rattles while I'm driving... it does make some sort of rattling noise when you move it back, but it's only sometimes.

The noise gets really bad sometimes too.

Thanks in advance for the input.

The sunroof and dash rattled in our 08 XLE. took several trips but the dealer finally got it fixed. I think there is a TSB on it. I could be confusing it with one of the other TSBs. I have to say this is the first Toyota we have owned an it has been to the dealer several times over the first year. Not what I expected when the wife wanted a Toyota.

The sunroof and dash rattled in our 08 XLE. took several trips but the dealer finally got it fixed. I think there is a TSB on it. I could be confusing it with one of the other TSBs. I have to say this is the first Toyota we have owned an it has been to the dealer several times over the first year. Not what I expected when the wife wanted a Toyota.

I have an 09 SE V6 and i have no issues with the sunroof rattling or dash noises. However, once in awhile the plastic on the dash my creak/pop due to bumpy roads or the A/C (very rare). I've only gone 1200 miles or so.

I would hope you never bought another car off of those people. Myself, with a car with less than 3000 miles I have no choice but to take it to them. An no I will not tolerate it.

A few bits:

1. No, I'll never buy another vehicle from that dealership again.

2. I just disagree on that "no choice" bit. If you'd like, do a search through every "noise" post you can find in this forum, and see how many people reported getting them solved by dealers, or didn't get them resolved, or wound up with a nightmare's worth of problems everafter. Yes, some have had success. My general recollection is that a majority of folks have NOT gotten noise issues resolved, and several have wound up with nightmares.

In my experience -- and I got PLENTY of it with a damn rattletrap 2004 Honda Accord coupe -- a little do-it-yourself noise mitigation is usually far more successful than the average trip to a dealer. It's definitely worth a shot before "trying your luck" with a dealer that has to perform warranty work under the insane time constraints the manufacturers hold them to.

Finally, there is plenty of "context" here. Yes, there's a TSB for some dashboard rattlings, and many people have had that done successfully. That appears to be a worthwhile operation. But that is a relatively minor operation compared to getting into the moonroof. There probably is no more-invasive operation a dealer can do than tearing your entire interior apart in order to get to that moonroof. And there's also the "engineering" of the headliner that they have to remove -- it's a virtual "house of cards" with pillar covers and other bits and pieces holding it up. It takes the utmost care and precision to remove everything without damaging something, and to put it back together again properly. Under "warranty work" time restrictions, I just truly doubt most dealer techs are going to be that careful.

If the rattling is mostly during cold days, I'd say it's the gasket around the sun/moon roof. In cold weather, gaskets tend to harden, sometimes even shrink in size. Now, if the sunroof parts were made within tolerance, the shrinking of the gasket would be accounted for, and there wouldn't be a rattling. However, there are such things as defective parts, hence the factory warranty. There may be a screw loose because the assembler didn't screw it in enough, or something to that effect.

Nonetheless, if your car is still warrantied, I would highly suggest taking your car into a dealership for service. True, technicians aren't miracle workers, but they are more trained and equipped to properly diagnose and solve the problem than some of us that don't have access to an assembly drawing or parts list. But if you're the type to take stuff apart without a diagram and explore your car, then by all means good luck hunting.

And, if the technicians don't solve the problem, at least wouldn't have spent any money (other than gas money) to fix it. Not to mention, if they do end up doing more harm than good, you can hold them accountable since they are legally bound by the company to properly service your vehicle. And who says you have to go back to the dealer that messed up? There are plenty of reputable Toyota dealers all around. Sure, some of us live a good distance away from the nearest dealership, but if there's a chance of a "free" fix for my car, why wouldn't I take it?

If the rattling is mostly during cold days, I'd say it's the gasket around the sun/moon roof. In cold weather, gaskets tend to harden, sometimes even shrink in size. Now, if the sunroof parts were made within tolerance, the shrinking of the gasket would be accounted for, and there wouldn't be a rattling. However, there are such things as defective parts, hence the factory warranty. There may be a screw loose because the assembler didn't screw it in enough, or something to that effect.

Nonetheless, if your car is still warrantied, I would highly suggest taking your car into a dealership for service. True, technicians aren't miracle workers, but they are more trained and equipped to properly diagnose and solve the problem than some of us that don't have access to an assembly drawing or parts list. But if you're the type to take stuff apart without a diagram and explore your car, then by all means good luck hunting.

And, if the technicians don't solve the problem, at least wouldn't have spent any money (other than gas money) to fix it. Not to mention, if they do end up doing more harm than good, you can hold them accountable since they are legally bound by the company to properly service your vehicle. And who says you have to go back to the dealer that messed up? There are plenty of reputable Toyota dealers all around. Sure, some of us live a good distance away from the nearest dealership, but if there's a chance of a "free" fix for my car, why wouldn't I take it?

My point exactly,

But I sure know what Thoots is talking about I had a Ford/Mercury and they made a real mess of my car. From a shattered hatchback window to a driver seat that had to be replaced because of a mech slicing the seat with a screwdriver in his back pocket and more. An even sadder I have no doubt lots never got the problem resolved and even some ended up with worse problems. Trouble is I think this comes down to design flaws. These people are there to bring the car up to specs. But if the spec is flawed.... well.

But as you clearly stated I will start by going the dealer route with my new car. I just pray I do not have Thoots nightmares.

EDIT: Oh and my problem is not from the moon roof (yet) but everywhere else! And only when below 60 it is clearly a plastic on plastic. I have to wait until it starts to get cooler and Here in Montreal it wont be long.