tailgate rattle, 97 850 GLT wagon

[OBrien]

Having got much good advice on this and other topics, thought I'd share this weekend's tailgate experience. Trying to be scientific, pulled one piece of trim at a time and test drove car to isolate rattle. By mid afternoon Sunday, was driving around with no tailgate interior, high brake light, D-pillar speaker covers, upper window trim, little vent panels above rear wheels, ceiling covers for rear barrier, etc.

Turns out signature rattle was combination of loose part # 24496 + nature of lock mechanism. 24496 part is some kind of shell between lock mech and exterior sheet metal, and was just kind of floating in the space. Stuffing a piece of foam in there took care of it, but was still some residual rattle (as most folks might imagine, at this point looking for utter silence).

Residual rattle is from locking system, where rod connecting interior handle and lock just float in a bushing. Main lock also = flat piece of metal floating between engage-post on central lock module and lock itself. Stuffing soft foam in between there and exterior sheet metal shut it up without interfering with operation. Not sure what part 24496 does (except rattle), so left it out on reassembly - sounds PG.

p.s. Haynes a off on R&R interior panel(s). At least on mine, interior is one piece (well, upper and lower joined by series of speed nuts on plastic bosses), so instructions about cardboard unnecessary as well as "pull--back-and-down-then-rap-forward"). Miraculously, no busted clips on trim panel despite thorny R&R (not to mention a few finger lacs). To agree with others, too bad Volvo opted for such cheesy engineering on such an otherwise solild car.

Ob

[MadeInJapan]

Nice job figuring this out for yourself....you're out, what? Price for some foam and some band aids on the lacerated fingers? I agree...Volvo needs a kick in the pants for such shoddy engineering. I think that Helda was working the day they came up with that design and she distracted the engineers to no end.