Dash rattle mitigation - dash disassemble DIY

Enough is enough. I can't stand the rattle so I took things more apart than I had before, which amounted to pulling up the grill and inserting some foam here and there. Here's a DIY on how to remove the grill at the windshield and help the rattle.

It helps if you have trim removal tools and I needed a depinning electrical tool not knowing how connectors come apart. You will also need a torx bit. Sorry I didn't look at the size. Some DIY huh?

You must loosen the A-pillar covers where the side curtain airbags are located. They are held in near the top by one clip. Pull straight down towards the floor on the cover near the top. BE CAREFUL as there are bungies that retain the cover to the vehicle and they don't stretch far. Don't break them and no need to disconnect them.


After the clip is loose you can pull out slightly and slide the cover towards the ceiling. Then you can push the bottom end of the cover over and behind the windshield grill channel. Repeat for both sides. Pay attention that the cover has a guide clip pointing down as well as dash channels that will need to be located into the dash to locate the bottom properly for reassembly.


The grill at the windshield is held in by simple snaps that simply pop in and out. Insert a soft panel tool between the grill and dashpad to carefully pry up the grill close to where the clips are tight.


There are three electrical connectors. The center speaker connector is on the passenger side. Slide the red locking tab away and toward the wires to reveal a push clip that releases the plug.


The phone call speakers have small plugs that are in tight. I figured there was a release I couldn't find so I used a depinning tool and inserted it to release the detent manually. Inspecting them after seems to indicate they just pull out and the detent is just super tight.


The grill should now be free. Pull one end up along the windshield to gain space to pivot it out.

So analyzing the rattle again after having pulled the grill up several times, my conclusion is that the heavy center speaker mounted to the flimsy dash grill is a recipe for noise. It is virtually unsupported in this area. I have elected to remove the speaker from the grill. Torx bit does that job.


From here I pondered what to do next; leave it out or mount it differently. After poking around in the dash I decided to attach it to the sturdier structure below. There are some unused brackets that some engineer probably thought would be useful to mount the speaker to and some accountant who decided that an extra bracket was too costly. Maybe the Meridian system utilized the brackets but the nut-serts are missing in any case and it didn't feel like the sleeves are threaded. A coarse screw could grab though.


I figured it's a tweeter and doesn't need isolation and the stereo can't possibly sound worse than it already does. As a test, I pulled the harness off the grill and plugged it in to the speaker. I simply zip tied the speaker to the two brackets tightly and carefully to the plenum on the other side as the plastic is rather thin.


I cut things cleanly, and tucked the wiring into some existing clips and under the dash. Thereafter assembly was the reverse.


I took it for a test drive down an asphalt street with bumps and continuous reflectors down the middle that make quite a racket. No rattles, from the dash.

Thanks for the writeup. I ordered an array of foam, tape, and weatherstrip to do this myself. The A pillars are the concerning part.

I do not see that you disabled the airbags and while the mechanism to do this on Ice vehicles was to disconnect the 12 v battery and then wait ten minutes for the backup capacitor to discharge. Not sure what the procedure is for our Rivians. Working on a dash with active air bags can cause unintentional bag deployment which has caused serious injuries and there is the potential for death depending where a persons face is when a bag deploys. Be cautious

I lifted mine with pry tools and wedged cloth all over the place. Took about 10 tries, but now it is 95% better. Only the biggest bumps and railroad tracks cause any noises....from the dash.

Excellent write up and for solving the noise issue.

Airbags are biggest concern working on the dash. Everything else is fair game.

I would figure that there is a fuse that could be pulled to disable the airbags. One of the manuals for an older ICE vehicle of mine wanted you to pull the fuses before replacing the cabin air filter.

If I remember correctly, the Ford Excursions (if not most ICE vehicles) needed you to pull the air bag fuse before lifting the vehicle (a neighbor and his mechanic found out the hard way - all air bags deployed).

R1Tom said:

I lifted mine with pry tools and wedged cloth all over the place. Took about 10 tries, but now it is 95% better. Only the biggest bumps and railroad tracks cause any noises....from the dash.

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I too have also been able to eliminate 99.9% of all dash noises without any disassembly. Primarily by wedging small strips of rubber weatherstripping that I had available under the front edge of the grill, primarily around the center speaker area. I also ran a strip of plastic under the entire front edge of the dash pad (using some black plastic spiral cable wrap straightened into a ribbon) and wedging a piece of foam rubber behind the center screen between the screen and ash wood trim (to eliminate a rattle from the wood trim).

electruck said:

I too have also been able to eliminate 99.9% of all dash noises without any disassembly. Primarily by wedging small strips of rubber weatherstripping that I had available under the front edge of the grill, primarily around the center speaker area. I also ran a strip of plastic under the entire front edge of the dash pad (using some black plastic spiral cable wrap straightened into a ribbon) and wedging a piece of foam rubber behind the center screen between the screen and ash wood trim (to eliminate a rattle from the wood trim).

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It you happen to have pictures of the locations and the materials you used can you please post them? We don't all use the same terms (e.g. Is the front edge closest to the front of vehicle or closest to a person sitting in a front seat?) and without a service manual to reference as a single source of truth for naming parts having pictures will probably help a lot of people. I'm hoping to do a fair amount of driving on trails that tend to have a washboard surface this summer and I think our dash vibration is going get really annoying really fast. Thanks!

Thanks for the additional ideas and solutions. I was not able to locate a fuse in either panel that was labeled anything resembling SRS airbag. If anyone knows which or where, please post up. Meanwhile, the accelerometers will be elsewhere on the body near the front clip. Be very cautious of yellow looms. I guaged the risk to be low for a misfire but I have a very dear friend who was severely injured by an original takata airbag.

SoCal Rob said:

It you happen to have pictures of the locations and the materials you used can you please post them? We don't all use the same terms (e.g. Is the front edge closest to the front of vehicle or closest to a person sitting in a front seat?) and without a service manual to reference as a single source of truth for naming parts having pictures will probably help a lot of people. I'm hoping to do a fair amount of driving on trails that tend to have a washboard surface this summer and I think our dash vibration is going get really annoying really fast. Thanks!

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Ditto SoCal’s questions!! Thank you Electruck!!

So this is the rattle that sounds like a cartoon diving board?

UnsungZero_OldTimeAdMan said:

So this is the rattle that sounds like a cartoon diving board?

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I can’t speak for others, but this is what I see and hear… and want to eliminate. Are others experiencing the same thing or something different?

SoCal Rob said:

It you happen to have pictures of the locations and the materials you used can you please post them? We don't all use the same terms (e.g. Is the front edge closest to the front of vehicle or closest to a person sitting in a front seat?) and without a service manual to reference as a single source of truth for naming parts having pictures will probably help a lot of people. I'm hoping to do a fair amount of driving on trails that tend to have a washboard surface this summer and I think our dash vibration is going get really annoying really fast. Thanks!

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I don't have any pictures at the moment but my approach is to apply wherever the noises come from. If I can find some time, I will try to get pics and document in more detail. No promises. Mostly just wanted to convey that taking the dash apart may not be required to eliminate all undesirable noises (but do appreciate the OP sharing for cases where it is).

In some cases the goal is to prevent 2 surface from touching or to slide quietly along each other. Cardboard, wax paper, or pieces of felt come in handy for these situations. Materials can vary based on what you have available and how much space exists between the parts.

In other cases, the goal is to insert spacers to force some tension against the clips holding things together. This was my goal with the dash. My prior description wasn't very precise (sorry) but when I referenced front, I was referring to edges closest to the front row seats and not closest to the windshield (which would be the actual front of the vehicle).

SoCal Rob said:

I can’t speak for others, but this is what I see and hear… and want to eliminate. Are others experiencing the same thing or something different?

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That sounds far worse than anything I had. Almost sounds like a clip is missing or broken.

electruck said:

That sounds far worse than anything I had. Almost sounds like a clip is missing or broken.

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That’s on a washboard dirt road. We almost rarely hear anything on smooth paved roads. A lot of the trails where we go are washboard so this isn’t an isolated issue given where we adventure.

I’ve never taken the dash apart, but I suspect that if there is any way to rigidly connect the center mounting point for the speaker grill (where it bumps out closer to the center screen) to a structural part of the vehicle then that would fix the issue we’re having. What @HaveBlue discovered (the weight of the heavy center speaker is virtually unsupported by anything which doesn’t flex) matches what I expected to see if I ever got to the point of disassembling the dash.

SoCal Rob said:

I can’t speak for others, but this is what I see and hear… and want to eliminate. Are others experiencing the same thing or something different?

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Yah, that's it. If it's the dash topper rattling against the speaker... A ring of foam on the speaker and between the two should resolve it.