2002 MAZDA PROTEGE Rattling noise

Thats a big list of potentials...

Is it worse when turning?

How many miles?

Does it do it with the drive train completely disengaged? (neutral)

If It were mine, I'd put it up on the lift and have a good ol' fashion looksee.

my car has 84000 miles on it and ill have to check those things out and post again thanks for the response Trace

I've had the front suspension spring break one coil from the bottom. It was hard to see but the broken spring did exactly what you describe.

The rugged rubber baby buggy bumpers fell out...

The only way I've found the source of several rattles was to have someone tow the vehicle so I could differentiate the sounds without the engine noise and without need to pay attention to the road.

I'm betting loose heat shield on one of the catalytic converters.

This could be due to a broken engine anchors holding the engine block to the body[chassis frome].

Run with open hood cover open,see if the engine rattles/move back and forth when you change gears.

wish u luck.

Check the exhaust shield(s); that is often the cause of the rattle you describe.

plancette covered almost every possibility I could think of (jeez your good), but covering them all can be a slow and frustrating procedure. The best method I've found for tracking things is to have the customer drive while I sit in the passengers seat with a stethescope. Once we've identified the noise in question (people tend to identify creaks, rattles, bumps, scrapes, ect. as all kinds of different things), note the exact type of circumstances under which it occurs (speed, powertrain load, chassis dynamics, road surface, ect.). Finally, I have the driver, or someone else, repeat the action until I can track it to a particular section of the vehicle (what you hear from the driver's seat is not neccesarily where it's coming from; I've found problems from a back seat that I swore were in the front when I was driving).

The amount of diagnosis depends on complexity, but the most common items are:

1/ Exhaust heat shields, hangers, and spring-tensioned flanges.

2/ Dry or worn out (same thing) sway/torsion bar/control arm rubbers; these don't even need to be cracked to make nasty noises. Check on an alignment hoist with the suspension loaded and "Tiny" the 300 lb buddy pushing it around. Your stethescope is an invaluable tool.

3/ Strut mount rubbers that are usually hiding a broken or cracked spring, and often a bad upper tower bearing (Tiny strikes again). Disassemble and replace as needed, but don't be surprised if the strut seals are toast.

4/ Brake caliper mounting hardware; on some vehicles this may include a forged bracket that's mounted to the spindle. I've rarely seen loose bolts, but plenty of worn out rubber and guide pins.

trace66usa

Have you found the spanner that you were looking for the other day?

It had happened to me. Good luck, Ky.

I have the exact same problem.... I crawled under my car and found that I had a few bolts missing from my skid plates and they also weren' interlocked correctly so they would be rattling