B Pillar clicking / ticking & door rubber / seal creaking / squeaking

[easeup]

Anyone else had this? Can’t be bothered taking it to a dealer until it is due a service, but don’t want to risk seatbelt issues either.

Almost Ideo. Pretty sure mine is in the door panel and not the B pillar. But i also heard something roll, drop, and rattle around. Occasionally when i accelerate i can hear it roll quickly from the front to back of the door panel.

[BorisR]

Just wanted to thank you guys for the advice about Gummi pflege. I had terrible creaking from the seals/felt around both the passenger and driver's doors in my R. Applied Gummi pflege to them twice and have not had any noises from them for over a month now. On an unrelated note, I had another annoying rattle coming from the rear area on the drivers side. I isolated this to the latch on top of the rear seat you use to fold the seats down. It was rattling in its housing when going over bumps. Shoved some bluetack next to the latch and it seems to have fixed it.

[vwsp]

Can I just clarify one thing ... is it really OK to put the Gummi pflege on the felted rubber along the top edge of the doors ... I did this having read this here and the creaking is worse than ever (much MUCH worse).

I had previously put it on the plain rubber seals and this was good. But the felted rubber?

Thanks!!

[Corey_R]

Yes, it's fine to put it on the felt.

If you're having much worse now, I can only imagine that the door jams have soap/polish/sealant/wax residue there. Maybe a thorough clean of the door jams using isopropyl alcohol or an APC or something might be in order?

[vwsp]

OK, that's good to know. Thanks!!

I will try cleaning the door jams again.

Cheers!

[dave_r]

Do gummi bears work? They taste much better

[Fab_R]

Do gummi bears work? They taste much better

Lol...you idiot!

[easeup]

Good news, everyone!
I fixed my weird driver's door panel rattle by accident!

When i was getting out of the car sometime on Saturday, the rubber sole of my shoe caught on the interior reflector on the bottom of the drivers door. It unclipped from the interior door panel and fell out. This bit:


The gap that created in the door panel allowed a plastic plug thing to fall out. Clearly this is the little bastard that has been noisily rattling around in there. Luckily the reflector clipped back in easily and my rattle is gone!


My question: what's that pluggy thing? Is it important, should i keep it?

[vwsp]

easeup, I would probably ask your dealer at the next visit but probably not much to worry about, just a leftover from the manufacturing process! But what an easy rattle to solve in the end - and what a fluke!

Also just a note to others with squeaky top door felted rubbers, I used isopropyl alcohol around the door jams as suggested by Corey_R AND applied a new coat of Gummi and ... heaven again thanks to this forum

I can't believe how fickle these rubbers are to things you can't even see. I might pamper the car but I have never polished/waxed the door jams. I've got no idea what I cleaned off but there must have been something there.

[Corey_R]

I can't believe how fickle these rubbers are to things you can't even see. I might pamper the car but I have never polished/waxed the door jams. I've got no idea what I cleaned off but there must have been something there.

Yeah... it could be something left over from pre-delivery. If it returns "soon", it could be the carwash you use leaves "residue". Some car washes openly boast that they include "waxes" etc to help protect your car. Avoid these

[fryad]

It's a worry that so many of us are suffering these door felt/rubber squeaks but having looked at the 22 pages of this thread I am amazed people are still bothering with temporary solutions. A US forum details that the problem is the felts rubbing on the tops of each door against the body. It's got nothing to do with whether it's waxed or polished or soaped or clean. It's a bad design by VW. The felt is simply too thin. The solution in the US? Buy some flexible 4mm or 6mm irrigation tubing from Bunnings and insert it in the gap between the two bits of felt in your doors. Two months on it has worked perfectly for me. No more sticky rubbers, messy door sills with gummi pflege overruns and finally after two years, a quiet car. The guys on the US forums were engineers and said that the doors simply needed thicker seals and the felt was to blame. I didn't believe it as the felt is so soft but try this fix and you will be amazed.

[Ryan_R]

Thanks for the tip. Mind taking a photo for us?

[rosslm]

Thanks for the tip. Mind taking a photo for us?

Check out these photo's as requested, use the normal 4mm irrigation conduit which is firm plastic this performs best, front doors from about the mirror to the top edge and for the rear doors just the top edge will do the trick. You can buy 10m in most hardware shops under $4.00, you will only need about 3.5m.

Just insert the conduit as shown cut off excess, there is no need to fix the conduit, it will stay in place contained by the door seal.





Good luck it's always been a quiet car that's the reason for the irritation any abnormal sound is noticeable but this raises the bar a notch further for those with squeaking door rubbers, I suspect this was a problem with earlier model MKVI's. I've been in a recent model with 10K on the clock and didn't notice the squeaking so maybe there has been a modification to the felt/rubber.

[Ryan_R]

Is it always that noticeable or is the reveal in the 2nd photo just for the camera? Sure it would raise a few eyebrows from passengers or if you ever sold it.

[rosslm]

Is it always that noticeable or is the reveal in the 2nd photo just for the camera? Sure it would raise a few eyebrows from passengers or if you ever sold it.

It's hardly noticeable, it just looks like part of the seal. It's unlikely anyone would notice it as non standard.

The close up shot is just that to show the conduit in place.