Rear door gas strut.

Hi, 

My wife has a 2017 Jimny which has for some time been making an unusual knocking sound from the rear. It drives her nuts and I have been unable to locate the source of the problem. Today however I think I have found it. The knuckle which holds the rear door gas strut to the bumper is worn on the ball and if I shake it about it produces the noise, not all the time but every now and then. I haven't time to take the strut off before going away tomorrow,( the nut holding the strut to the bumper is awkward to get to), but I will have a look when I get home. 

I wondered if anyone else has had this happening? It doesn't make the noise every time the car goes over a bump, just now and again as if the weight of the spare moves the door at certain times.

Thanks,

Martin.

Yes ours is the same, but only when the door is fully open.
When open the gas strut is at its maximum extension and so can rattle on the ball. However when you shut the door the strut is under compression and effectively holds the strut against the ball, so it doesn't rattle with the door shut. Are you sure yours rattling when shut ?

Also do you have a tow bar fitted?
These can rob the rear silencer of space to move, when they hit it sound very much like an intermittent rear door problem. Well mine did
If you do have a tow bar try shacking the exhaust pipe just in front of the rear passenger side wheel, up down / side to side, see if this produces the noise. Moving at the tail pipe will not, it's supported by a hanger at this point that prevents movement in this area.

My back door was making a bit of noise and I had to adjust the rubber stops to tighten it up on the latch when closed, perhaps this is what you can hear?

When I fitted a tow bar I noticed that the back box was quite close and moved or repositioned one of the hangers to give more clearance. I can’t quite remember what I moved but the box doesn’t hit the tow bar.

wrote:

When I fitted a tow bar I noticed that the back box was quite close and moved or repositioned one of the hangers to give more clearance. I can’t quite remember what I moved but the box doesn’t hit the tow bar.

I had exactly the same problem when I fitted mine, it took a lot of adjustment to give it clearance. For me it was the rear silencer passenger side hanger that needed adjustment to lift the silencer slightly. But once fitted it never hit......
Roll forward 2 years and the Jimny developed any annoying intermittent rear door rattle. Turned out the silencer hanger had metal fatigue crack  and was once again flexing to hit the tow bar. Looked perfectly fine when inspected, only a pipe shake on the mid section highlighted the issue.
I was convinced it was the rear door / jack area for months, drove me mad.