I've always had a few rattles creaks and groans from somewhere at the back of my A250, the dealer has looked at it three times and given it back saying its all fixed but it never has been. During the hot weather it was not too bad but they returned again as the temperatures dropped, anyhow yesterday I thought I will see what I could do to reduce them.
I had read a couple of things on other threads that I thought I would give a try, one suggested using silicone grease around the rubber door seals, I didn't have any of that to hand but I did have some stuff that's for conditioning rubber seals, its probably snake oil but I've used it for years on my soft top to good effect so used that.
Another thread suggested aligning the rear doors if they were not 100% true, so I did that as well, both really easy and only took half an hour or so.
Took it out for a test drive and I was very impressed with the improvement, however, there was still some rattling from the parcel shelf area, I could see it moving in time with the rattle. Checking it out I was surprised to find just how boomy it is, most others I have had give a dead sound when you knock them but this some sort of booms. I was thinking of what I could stick to the bottom of it to deaden it a bit when I noticed that the two rubber pads on the back of the shelf did not touch the hatch at all, there was something like a 5mm gap which allowed the shelf to bounce up and down as you drive over bumps. I didn't have much to hand to resolve this so I just folded some kitchen towel until it was a sung fit and hey presto an almost rattle free car.
The last job is to adjust the hatch latch so that it is a snugger fit and find something to replace the kitchen towel but that will have to wait until I have a larger Torx bit to take one of the panels off.
Sadly I didn't do these things in order and test in-between so I can't say which had the most effect and I don't know how long lasting these cures will be but hey they have been more effecting than the dealers cures so far
