I'm perplexed by a rattle from the engine compartment of my 1996 NA 850 wagon with 180K miles and the automatic transmission. It makes a fairly loud rattling noise between 1300 and 1500 rpms when in gear. Outside that range the rattling sound is so greatly diminished as to be almost unnoticeable. A bit of rattling in Park, but again, so little that you wouldn't notice unless you were paying attention. The car runs fine, feels strong, and gets about 28 mpg highway with a kayak strapped to the racks.

I've crawled around to look for the obvious things that could simply be rattling. The heat shields over the exhaust seem okay and solidly bolted down. The passenger side engine mount is almost new. I also replaced that front transmission mount. Is this maybe some transmission problem?

 

Hows the rubber on the top mounts (the dogbone)?

 

Actually bought the replacement a while back and then looked closely at what was there. Seemed okay, so I let it be.

 

If it is a thin metallic sounding rattle, like aluminium, that normally you would think would be caused by the heat shield, I have had it on both my 850's and it is frustrating!

 

That's in gear. What does it sound like if you go to neutral ?? Is it any different forward or reverse ??

 

Thanks for the additional questions. Same sound in Reverse as in Drive. Park and Neutral are the same — markedly less noise in that rpm range.

I should add that I've been living with this for a couple years, so as far as I know disaster isn't right around the corner. But it's annoying, and at the moment I don't have any other car problems with higher priority.

 

I have the same issue on my 05 s40. The noise is completely annoying especially when you are in a slow in a neighborhood it's so loud. Any ideas?

 

Is there a heat shield on the back of the exhaust manifold and did you check it too ??