From what we've seen on the forums and video comments, a lot of Model 3's and now Model Y's have a minor rattle coming from the seat belt adjuster area on the driver's side. It typically only happens when the seat belt is in the bottom position and you're on a rougher road, but it is an annoying buzz right in the driver's ear.
After Tesla failed to fix it on our Model 3, I made several attempts with felt tape (paid link) in various places, but I'm happy to report I've finally resolved it for good. The fix is pretty easy and only takes a few minutes.
How to Fix Your Tesla Seat Belt Rattle
Materials Needed
- A few inches of this felt tape (paid link) in just the right places did the trick.
Suggested Tools
- Plastic trim tools (paid link) help remove the cover.
- Sharp scissors (paid link) to cut the felt tape.
- A clamp (paid link) to hold the seatbelt while you work.
Instructions
A picture is worth a thousand words, but sometimes there's no substitute for a video, so check out the procedure here.
Video Transcription
Hey, I'm Matthew from Living Tesla. Over a year ago I fixed a rattle in my Model 3 that was coming from this seat belt adjuster area. It's held up fine in my Model 3, but when we got the Model Y, I had the same rattle. I tried the same fix and it didn't go away this time.
So I've spent a little more time with it, and I think what I did in the Model 3 didn’t actually fix it—I think I just kind of inadvertently made the rattle go away. But in the Model Y, I found it and I fixed it. So let's check it out.
The first thing you need to do is remove this cover piece. It has little clips that come in on the sides here that poke in this way, so you need to get behind this rubber piece and pull it out. I like to use a little plastic pry tool to get behind it, then get your fingers back behind it and pull it out this way and then towards the inside of the car. Do the same thing on the other side—get your finger behind that piece of rubber, pull it towards the front of the car, and then out this way.
Up at the top, we have clips here and here. They need to come out, so pull like that, and then we just pull this down. The seat belt kind of wants to go all over the place, so I like to use a clamp, grab it like that, and then you can move this thing around without it being all over the place.
What I fixed in the Model 3, that I thought was causing the rattle, was in this piece. When you push this down and adjust it up, it kind of locks in place. But when you go to the bottom, it can kind of move up and down and make a rattling noise. So that may still be a valid fix.
But what I found in the Y that really made the problem go away is actually right here. If we look at this piece, you have the cloth-covered piece of plastic that's stable, and you have this non-cloth-covered piece of plastic that slides up and down. What I found is that it’s this part rattling against the inside. If we look inside, you kind of have these tracks that it fits into. We want to put some felt where this interface happens between the two.
If you slide this part up, you can fold this part out and remove it from the track. You kind of have to go up and down a little bit, but then this inside piece can come out. I came and put felt tape in here in several places. I put it across the front here, and then also on these little tabs—those are where that interface is between this piece and this piece. I put six pieces on those interfaces.
There are more right here and right here, but I found that if I put too much it just causes too much friction and makes it too hard to slide. Even these six pieces do add some friction to it, but it's not too bad—you can still adjust it.
Then you just line things back up. Get it back into its little track, fold this away again, back in the track, and it works. It slides, it has a little more stiffness to it than it did before, but that totally made the rattle go away.
To put this back together, remove the clamp. Make sure the seat belt retracts back with no twists or anything like that. Make sure this is towards the bottom and this is towards the bottom so that they line up when you put it back in. Then start at the top, getting it back underneath this rubber piece.
Make sure that these clips are getting in place where they need to be. Then you’re just tucking it back inside of the rubber, getting things lined back up. When you’re dealing with plastic pieces and plastic clips like this, you don’t ever want to force things—you just want to make sure that you get things lined up where they go.
It came out of the rubber up here, so put that in, and that does it. Then you push on that, adjust it down, and that should fix it. You may need to do it on the other side too—I haven’t had any complaints from my passengers that theirs are rattling, but it’s the same thing on both sides, so maybe.
That’s it, really. It’s a pretty easy fix. I’m just using some of this thin felt tape—it has adhesive on one side and soft cloth on the other—and it does a great job all around for getting rid of these kinds of rattles. I’ll post a link in the description to this and also some of the pry tools.
That’s about it, really. Hope this helps. Thanks for watching.
