Anyway, Carmax and the Volvo dealer (through our Carmax warranty) have had the car more than we have in the first two months, but we are determined to get this car right since it’s still inside of Carmax’s 90 day full warranty period. One issue has been the Headlamp Malfunction message, which we thought was fixed when they replaced the drivers headlight assembly due to condensation inside. While working on the passenger side door panel rattle issue this evening (which brings me to this thread), I had the car running so I could continue to adjust the window up and down while I diagnosed the problem. After quite a while, I noticed the my garage suddenly got a little darker (headlights were reflecting off my garage wall in front of the car), and then suddenly the headlamp malfunction/service required message Was again displayed. Suddenly the low beam and fog light on that side were out, but when I turned on the fog lamp button, that driver side fog light worked just fine. Also, when I went from low beams to high beams, the low beam, fog lamp, and high beam in the driver side very briefly turned on before going off and remaining off… My point is that the bulbs seem to be just fine, but there must be a wiring problem somewhere – perhaps a short or bad relay??
More to the point of this thread (sorry for that long unrelated intro)…Carmax had the car for over two weeks alone just trying to find the passenger door rattle. They said they found that the power cables behind the door panel were not clipped securely and that the rattle was coming from that. Upon picking up the car my wife immediately texted to tell me that the door was still rattling. I removed the door panel (a very simple job) and found that the cables still had not been clipped into placed. So I did that amd closed things up, sure that this must be the problem. Upon my wife’s first drive after that she again let me knowthat it was still rattling. I finally hopped into the car while she drove and with the door panel removed and realized that the rattle was worse as the window was partly up/down. I could lightly bang on the inner panel of the door (which covers the window and to which the power window motor and other switches attach) and hear a very loud rattle. When we bought the car there were a few pieces of glass on the floor, so we could tell that a window had been broken previously; based on the rattle we assumed it must’ve been the passenger door and that things were Not properly secured when that window was replaced or that there were glass pieces down in the down rattling . But while riding around with her I could tell it was definitely not the latter and was able to isolate the sound a little better to theright hand side of the door.
When we got back home I began to try to remove the inner door panel, but I am not sure that’s possible without special ninja knowledge and an extra pair of hands or two, as the window itself appears to keep the panel from being removed. I did remove all of the screws around the panel and loosen it enough to pry it outward slightly enough to squeeze my hand behind the panel and find that the metal track that the window slides up and down on was the culprit. Shazam! At last I knew the source, which was the bottom right screw that comes from the inside of the door panel and faces outward (you can see these 4 screw tips and threads looking at you when you removed the decorative door trim panel), which was not fully tightened. I was able to take a T25 bit and small ratchet and pry my hand back behind there and crank that screw down the final thread or two and fully secured that window guide rail… Problem solved!! Whew!
My wife has bat ears and can hear a ticking clock two floors down in our house (no kidding), so this was driving her bonkers, and she was ready to make Carmax take the car back over this issue. So, we have that resolved now but just need to get this headlamp thing worked out.
On a side note, when initially replaced the decorative door panel, the window would go up all the way and then automatically return to a half-down position. I assumed I had the power window motor teeth misaligned or something, after hitting the window button while the motor was not engaged in the window gears and dangling from the door panel during my disassembly and diagnosis process. I quickly removed the door panel and window motor again, ran the powerwindow button from the drivers side all the way to the down position (although the motor was still Not attached), and then Reassembled everything and had it working just fine again. So, just a tip on the gear positioning of the window motor before you reattach it.
Hope this can help others’ rattle issues. Would love to know what’s going on with the headlights though!