Hi there,

as the title says, this is about a creaky dash around the home button for a 2011 model. There's a short video attached to give you the location and sound. I've searched the forum, found nothing ... maybe my search terms aren't good. Anyway, advice to rectify the creaking would be great.

Thanks

 

Mine started doing that a little bit after being serviced for the airbag recall, but not quite as bad as your example. There's about a half a bazillion little tabs behind the wood trim piece holding it on. Unfortunately, the way modern cars are made, they don't put them together with screws, but rather they are designed to be snapped together like those cheesy plastic models for ages six to ten. Its cheaper to make a robot or pay a worker to snap things together than to operate any sort of threaded fastener. The trouble with snap fasteners is they are really designed for a one-time use. Its usually ok when its snapped together for the first time at the factory, but then when they have to be unsnapped and snapped back for any kind of service, it weakens them considerably. Each tab behind the panel has a spring metal clip that pushes into a rectangular hole in the plastic and that's what holds it together. Someone servicing the car at some point may have even lost one or more of the spring metal clips or broken off one or more plastic tabs.

Enough of my soap box speech, now back to the fix. Mine were all just weakened. Most still held, just not tight anymore. To stop the squeaks, I applied Mortite brand grey weatherstrip caulk (sometimes called dum-dum in the body shop industry) in strategic places behind the trim plate. Auto manufacturers used to use tons of it at the factory to seal up cars and stop squeaks back in the day, at least up through the 80s that I have seen. Its a sticky, gooey, clay-like substance that never dries completely hard. It takes up the free play left in the trim plate from the weakened snap fasteners (makes it seem More Tight, perhaps the inspiration for the brand name) but its not so sticky that you can't take it apart again if you need too. It was a bit of trial and error to find just the right places to put several little ***** of it, but it worked a treat.

 

If that were the only issue with my car I would be delighted...

Spray plastic lube around the dash there and button Wipe clean

 

Thanks Phil D,

Your solution sounds as though some dash disassembly is required. Is that the case? Does that lower wood trim remove easily and separately or is it more involved?

Thanks

 

Yes. Its not difficult but you will want some non-scratch pry tools. Something like this set on Amazon....

 

Seriously, its easier than that, much, just spray and walk away. I've use plastic lube on a ton of cars at the custom shop I used to own. I will send you a can to try, I am that serious.....

 

[QUOTE=pdupler;2224013]Yes. Its not difficult but you will want some non-scratch pry tools. Something like this set on Amazon....

Thanks Phil D.

I have a good set of trim removal tools but I like to look before I leap. Is there a guide to this trim piece removal that I can read?

Thanks