Found that rattle
 

For the longest time I've had a rattle that sounded like it was just under the drivers side. I wouldn't always hear it, and couldn't figure out when it would happen. Sometimes on big bumps sometimes small ones, high speed and sometimes slow speed. It didn't have a rythm, it would just do it when it felt like it.

The other day it got the loudest and most frequent. So I started looking at everything. Front and rear sway bar end links, fuel lines rattling, maybe a screw inside at the bottom of the door? I finally found it's whereabouts when I hit my hand on the bottom of the car right behind the drivers seat where that little drain plug is. I pulled the moulding and lifted the carpet and felt around and I found it. There was a penny bouncing around down there.

I know it doesn't sound unordinary. It was just a penny that could have gotten down there durring work or something else, but I've never lifted the carpet or removed any interior piece so I have no idea how it got down there. Also, it's a 2000 penny. The same year my 01 was made. Ever here that myth about an assembly worker putting a bolt with a note atatched to it saying "Took you long enough to find me" in the dash of a new car so that it would make noise? I'm probably looking at this too hard but how in the hell did a penny get under the carpet where the rear driverside passenger puts their feet? I never lifted the carpet and I know the previous owner never did either. :confused:

Re: Found that rattle
 

In the '70s, my Uncle found a Coke bottle in the fender well.... No note inside, though....

Re: Found that rattle
 

If you look into the console small items can get under the carpet pretty easily if it falls into there.

Re: Found that rattle
 

When you coinholder/ashtray overfills it fall over the side and goes into the console which is where the carpet has an opening.

Re: Found that rattle
 

Where did you hear that from? If I ever had to tear a dash apart at work to find that I would be so friggin pissed! :mad:

Re: Found that rattle
 

Heard of someone at a car factory putting a washer on a little string and tying it between the rear quarter and the rear fender, would hit the fender on left hand turns only and clank around.. It was a Lincoln.. I believe it was a town car.. Many myth's circle around here (Detroit Area) about Factory workers doing stuff like this.. Heard of workers going to the bank and getting 100 new pennies and putting them under driver or passenger seat carpets.. Kind of a way of saying that this car was new in _ _ _ _. maybe just a way of leaving a piece of them behind or with every car they touch.. Builders of homes leave new pennies behind walls, behind medicine cabinets.. etc.. way of saying I was here or This was built then.. There's a difference between leaving apart of you, that no one will probably notice and making a thing someone will hate or have to find.. Given that your car was built in 2000 which means it was built in St. Threase, Quebec, CANADA.. So the builders probably didn't put it there, it probably found it's way there on it's own..

Re: Found that rattle
 

P.S. The pennies under the seats.. That was from a friend who worked at the late Ford Dearborn Mustang Plant... Heard alot of stories from workers out of that plant.. Can't say if they are true or myth.. Didn't sit and watch.. When I visted them for lunch on many occasions, didn't seem like they had a whole lot of time to waste.. but I guess you find time, when all you do is put in window regulators all day... 1 every 42 seconds with breaks every 2 hours.. That's like 900 a day or so.. Have a Friend who works at the thunderbird plant and he pulls cars off line and parks them.. Heard stories from him aswell, but I don't know.. He's a BSer.. Glad I love GM's.. With everyone I know building Fords... it's a bit scary..