Quick fix to a rattling noise plaguing my BMW 3 series for a year

What I initially thought was a complex operation, turned out to be just a quick 2-minute fix.

BHPian Dr.AD recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

I find my engine+gearbox combination to be the best (for my liking) in Sports mode on Engine and normal D mode on gearbox (there is a separate sports mode on the gearbox that you can try too), and I almost always use that combination. You can play around with these and see if you find something that works better for you.

Annoying Rattle Fixed

By the way, since about a year ago, I had an annoying rattle somewhere from the rear (boot area), that would turn itself on and off randomly. I had mentioned that previously in this thread (about a year ago). That time, the expert from the service centre who test drove my car told me it was coming from the rear sunblinds. Since fixing that would require a complex job of opening the entire rear sunblind assembly (it is an electrically operated sunblind), I decided against that complex operation. I just decided to live with that rattle.

Then later sometime, the rattle mysteriously disappeared, and I was happy about that. However, that annoying rattle returned with a vengeance about two months ago.

Thankfully, it got identified correctly and got fixed yesterday. Turns out that the rattle was not from the sunblinds at all. The rear sunblind rattles are common in F30, and therefore, many F30 owners attribute any rear rattle to sunblinds. However, that may not be correct, as I learned in my case.

Yesterday, a "rattle/noise expert" from Navnit BMW accompanied me for a short test drive. These rattles have an annoying habit of not showing their real nature when someone is watching for them. I was worried that I may not be able to reproduce the rattle when I wanted to show it. However, thankfully, the rattling sound started when the expert was sitting in the rear seat just to listen to the rattle sounds. He got a good "sample" of the sound, and true to his expertise, he identified that sound. He asked me to pull over at a safe place on the side of the road and stop the car. He got down and opened the boot, and showed me exactly the part that was causing that rattle. I was amazed by his skill in exactly pinpointing the source of the rattle, the source which was elusive to all of us for more than a year!

Turns out that under the boot roof (further inside from the boot lid; this is the interior boot roof that we are talking about), there was a plastic bracket attached. And this bracket was making this rattling sound. When we tapped on that bracket by hand, I heard the exact same rattling sound that was annoying me for so long.

I could not see any purpose for that bracket. The BMW expert explained to me that this bracket has no purpose in my car, and it is meant for some accessories used in the international market. Basically, this was a plastic piece attached to the roof of the boot with no apparent purpose in my car.

So, as the best solution to that rattle, he simply unscrewed a screw holding that bracket in place and removed it. Voila! The rattle was gone!

The bracket was attached to this hole that you see in this picture (Note: This is not the boot lid which is covered with a soft liner; this is the interior roof of the boot)

This is that bracket, removed from that roof spot.

I am still not sure why that bracket was there, but it was there and it was making that annoying rattling sound. I am so happy that the sound is gone and quite impressed by the rattle expert from Navnit BMW who identified this so precisely and fixed it.

For fellow F30 owners who are also suffering from what is assumed to be a sunblind rattle, it might be worth checking if this is the part that is actually rattling.

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