Rattle From Steering Wheel Avensis Estate T27 2.0 D4D T4

[bbability]

Folks

I having trouble identifying a rattle in my steering wheel column area at low speed or driving on really smooth surface. The steering column is solid with no play. It's electronic but shows no symptoms of a fault. Ive posted a YouTube clip of the noise. Any help or pointers would be great. Really like the car. Bought it in the UK last year. http://youtu.be/3Ban_2nUHW4

[gazza1286]

I can't distinguish the noise from that video? Could there be some play on the tilt-lock mechanism? Set it to a different angle to see if it makes a difference.

[Exvec]

Take the car into a tyre centre and get them to rebalance the wheels :D

If it still does it get a proper 4 wheel Alignment done on the car using preferably a Hunter machine...

[bbability]

Finally managed to get to the bottom of it today..I think. The brake calipers are loose on both sides of the car. There's a bit of play in both more so on the right front. I checked bolts and all are tight so I think I'll replace both calipers. I believe there's a kit you can buy from Toyota so I'll start ther and see if it cures the rattle.

[gazza1286]

There's supposed to be play on the calipers. They are designed to float on pins (commonly referred to as sliders) which allow them to centralise. Any excessive wear would be on the pins themselves (unlikely in my experience). These can be replaced independently at a much lower cost.

[alan333]

I've had the rattly brakes on my previously owned T25, cured by replacing the slider pins (cleaning up the old ones and packing with grease also cured it, albeit temporarily).

I also have the rattly brakes on my current Avensis, and have read various reports of others with the same. It was reported to Toyota on it's last service and they "cleaned them up". Needless to say it didn't quieten it down for long. I'll be reporting them again next service.

BTW if you do buy new slider pins beware you only get two pins in a "set", ie enough to do one wheel, and they're extortionately priced, I can't remember exactly now, but IIRC it was something rediculous like forty or sixty quid per side.

[bbability]

Thanks for the response guys. I'm going to go ahead a rebuild calipers. I'll buy the rebuild kit and see how it goes. by the way I parked it beside a friends 2010 saloon avensis and there was no play in his calipers so I defintley am going to start there. I know when I changed the pads and discs before Christmas the brake pad wear on the right front was uneven. I cleaned as much as I could but didn't have the White paste toyota recommend to use on the slider pins.

[Airfan]

I've got the same rattle and I already knew it was from the brake calipers but still don't have time to change the pins. Please, let me know if you manage to fix that rattle.

[bbability]

Ok a quick update. I changed the brake calipers. RF was in bad shape so I'm glad I went ahead with the change. It seem that I did not get anti-rattle springs with my replacement pads. and the brake pads had movement. I believe they come standard with Toyta Brake Pads but they were nearly 80 euro compared to 40 euro for the mintex pads. I used Mintex Pads and Discs. I used Mintex Dot 5.1 Brake Fluid as I could get my hands on anything higher on the day.

So the brakes are now working better than ever. That "rattle" is there but not as previlent. I'm going to check the bushings next.

[bbability]

So another chance to get to the bottom of this annoying rattle and it seems the Harley Spicer has a bit of play underneath the steering column which is causing this rattle. Anyone seen this before?

[bbability]

I'm after coming across this video this evening. The rattle I was trying to capture is around 25 seconds into this one. Sound familiar to anyone?

[bbability]

Here is a better video of the rattle