Front Strut Rattle - SOLVED

[PAUL POWELL]

I have been dealing with a rattle coming from the left front of my Model X P100D. It was very plasticy sounding that sounded like it was coming from just under the windshield. It was driving me nuts for a few weeks and after replacing all of the trim under the frunk and tearing the dash apart looking for the rattle, I had Tesla mobile service come out to replace my windshield wipers (Yes, just to get the mobile tech out) and I asked him to listen to the rattle and he told me it was the left front strut, which is common on the Tesla Model X.

I replaced the front struts with the Arnott struts and they fixed the problem and the ride is very similar to the factory ride. The factory struts are $990 each, you can find these for probably 1400 for the pair.

After replacing the struts, I took the broken strut apart to figure out the rattling and I found that the top part of the strut was moving side to side very slightly where the good strut wasn’t moving in the same way. You could clearly hear the rattle on the bad strut. I removed the C-Clip from the top of the strut, holding in the cover for the air valve and then pulled the black cover to the air valve off and found a 17MM nut attaching the bump stop to the top of the shock. This 17mm nut was lose just slightly. I tightened it about 1/2 a turn and it stopped the rattling, solving the problem. Unfortunately I destroyed the strut trying to find the solution to this problem so it’s not reusable.

Hopefully, if you have the strut rattle problem, you can just remove the strut, pop this C-clip and tighten that 17mm nut and put it all back together. The key would be removing the black cover without damaging it. It’s almost pressed into the shock, it took some effort for us to remove it. We were not worried about damaging the shock so we used a hammer, but I think a good pair of rubber lined vice grips should do the trick.

Check out the pictures below for more details and reach out with any questions you might have. I have pictures but the forum will not let me upload the pictures "files are too big" yet they are only 600kb.

 

[PAUL POWELL]

Here’s the pictures

 

[Retkimora]

Thank you for sharing. I lost some hair with this as well as the rattle appeared on both front struts. Tesla would only replace the whole strut with hefty pricetag. The plastic top cap lifted off easily, no tools were needed. It is sealing and nice fit so maybe yours was just dirty? Be prepared to do this tightening again at some point. Nut gets loose as there is no locking mechanism preventing it happening. I added threadlock to mine. First "repair" lasted one year and after that I just added more threadlock. Now it seems to hold fine.

 

[bumpersignal]

Sort of off topic but do you buy the struts from Tesla SC or from ebay? I wonder how warranty on parts work when you DIY from parts purchased direct from SC. I can't even get them to cover work that they do themselves, so I imagine warranty would be hard to prove on parts that I bring back if they ever are defective after a few months.

 

[PAUL POWELL]

Sort of off topic but do you buy the struts from Tesla SC or from ebay? I wonder how warranty on parts work when you DIY from parts purchased direct from SC. I can't even get them to cover work that they do themselves, so I imagine warranty would be hard to prove on parts that I bring back if they ever are defective after a few months.

I bought the replacement struts from T-Sportline. They are Arnott replacements. They hey had the best price. In reviewing the Arnott’s to the OE Tesla struts. I couldn’t see a difference. Both have Bilstein dampers and Firestone airbags. The ride is very similar to the OE struts I had with 85,000 miles on them.

 

[Slavas]

Thanks for your experience! I probably have another problem that appeared after winter. In the video you can hear clicks when you slowly turn the steering wheel in position N. There are also clicks while driving, but less. The clicks are localized on the metal ring at the very bottom of the rubber boot of the front air strut. The ring rotates slightly relative to other parts of the air strut when the steering wheel is turned. Wet weather or adding a little spray lubricant vertically underneath the ring reduces the clicking for a short time.
I will be glad to receive any of your recommendations

 

[chintanchotli]

Thanks for your experience! I probably have another problem that appeared after winter. In the video you can hear clicks when you slowly turn the steering wheel in position N. There are also clicks while driving, but less. The clicks are localized on the metal ring at the very bottom of the rubber boot of the front air strut. The ring rotates slightly relative to other parts of the air strut when the steering wheel is turned. Wet weather or adding a little spray lubricant vertically underneath the ring reduces the clicking for a short time.
I will be glad to receive any of your recommendations

Which video?

 

[Slavas]

Which video?

Sorry

IMG_1827.MOV

Shared with Dropbox

www.dropbox.com

 

[chintanchotli]

Sorry

IMG_1827.MOV

Shared with Dropbox

www.dropbox.com

Oh yo that is a horrible sound tbh. Slightly creepy too

 

[PAUL POWELL]

Thanks for your experience! I probably have another problem that appeared after winter. In the video you can hear clicks when you slowly turn the steering wheel in position N. There are also clicks while driving, but less. The clicks are localized on the metal ring at the very bottom of the rubber boot of the front air strut. The ring rotates slightly relative to other parts of the air strut when the steering wheel is turned. Wet weather or adding a little spray lubricant vertically underneath the ring reduces the clicking for a short time.
I will be glad to receive any of your recommendations

That sounds horrible, I don’t think it’s the same lose nut that I experienced. I wonder if you try to tighten the hex bolt at the bottom of the strut that’s connecting the strut to the bottom bracket? (Picture attached) Although I suspect the shock is moving within the housing and I don’t know how to fix that without a full replacement.

The Arnott struts I put on mine are very good and I can’t tell the difference from the OEM strut.

 

[Slavas]

That sounds horrible, I don’t think it’s the same lose nut that I experienced. I wonder if you try to tighten the hex bolt at the bottom of the strut that’s connecting the strut to the bottom bracket? (Picture attached) Although I suspect the shock is moving within the housing and I don’t know how to fix that without a full replacement.

The Arnott struts I put on mine are very good and I can’t tell the difference from the OEM strut.

The sound appeared when the aluminum ring rotated. A couple of weeks before this sound appeared, I changed the lower control arms to Danish Triscan ones. Yesterday, as an experiment, a mechanic replaced the lever with an old one and the clicks went away completely, and the ring stopped rotating!!! It’s not yet completely clear whether these are levers or not, but I’ll keep an eye on it.
By the way, I compared Triscan with the original and at least I noticed that the center distance between the silent blocks differs by 1 - 1.5 mm. Also, the internal hole of the large silent block is slightly smaller and a bolt mark remains on it.