Dealing With Exhaust Rattles
This post is sponsored as part of my relationship with the Quality Blue Community. All opinions expressed are my own.
Here’s the scenario. You’re sitting in traffic and you hear this annoying ‘buzzing’ noise coming from under your vehicle. No matter how much you turn up the radio, it’s still there. You could have an exhaust rattle.
In my opinion exhaust rattles aren’t too hard to find. I often wait till the vehicle cools and hit the exhaust components with the palm of my hand, or the back of my fist. This can usually replicate the rattle. Once I’m sure I have an exhaust rattle, I proceed with an appropriate repair.
Repairs for exhaust rattles can vary greatly depending on what the issue is. The most common issue is a loose heat shield. These are metal shields on the outside of certain exhaust components designed to keep heat away from other parts of the vehicle, or the ground.
I don’t recommend removing exhaust shields unless you’re going to replace them. The engineers that designed the vehicle put them there for a reason. Removing them might have adverse effects.
For instance, if you remove a lower exhaust shield and you live in a very arid climate, you could start a fire when parking in tall grass or off road. So as a general rule, avoid removing exhaust shields completely.
Of course the best repair would be to remove and replace the shields with new shields if they are indeed the cause of the noise. This can be expensive and often not worth the effort.
Instead, I would recommend reattaching the shield and tightening it up so that it no longer rattles. I often use hose clamps for this (you can get these at Advance Auto Parts). They’re cheap, and readily available. Also, if you string enough of them together, you can cover some very large components like catalytic converters. It’s an easy, cheap repair that I’ve been successful doing for a number of years.
There’s another type of exhaust rattle that may be a bit more difficult to diagnose. Some exhaust components are actually double walled. Meaning they are a ‘pipe within a pipe’. These inner pipes can sometimes break loose and cause an exhaust rattle.
You won’t be able to spot these as easily as loose heat shields. In fact, it may take you some banging around to find them. Once you do, here’s a couple of options for you.
You can either replace the entire component, or you can modify your existing component to eliminate the noise. In the past I’ve taken the ball end of a ball-peen hammer and whacked the outside of the exhaust part in question. This will create dimples on the outside of the pipe that can ‘wedge’ the inner pipe into place, thus eliminating the cause of the noise.
This repair often works, but it may not work in every application. If the rattle is coming from a catalytic converter, NEVER hit a catalytic converter with a hammer, it will only make things worse. If the rattle is due to a bad catalytic converter, the converter must be replaced.
{loadposition advert300x250}
If you find that the innards of your muffler have come loose causing the noise, the muffler must be replaced. I don’t have any ‘hammer’ tricks for you on this one, sorry.
There you have it. The next time you’re dealing with one of those pesky exhaust rattles, you’ll know just how to deal with them.
Be Safe, Have fun, Stay Dirty
EricTheCarGuy
Eric Cook
Video Title: Dealing With Exhaust Rattles -EricTheCarGuy Video Description: Here’s the scenario. You’re sitting in traffic and you hear this annoying ‘buzzing’ noise coming from under your vehicle. No matter how much you turn up the radio, it’s still there.Thumbnail: http://www.ericthecarguy.com/images/blog/2016/advanced/exhaust-rattle-intro-lg.jpg
