I've had the same issue with the 400w Meridian in my '21 S pretty much since I took delivery. I had the driver's door bass speaker replaced and that didn't do anything. My family owns an environmental equipment manufacturing facility and I cut up a piece of our gasket material and stuck it to the inside of the speaker grilles. That stopped the grille rattle. I plan on installing Dynamat and will tape up any loose wires or tape etc. Looking forward to finally getting this all sorted out.

 

Is this the only rattle that you have? It's absolutely infuriating to me. What tool did you use to pop off the speaker cover?

 

I'd like to know, too. Can you describe the work of removing the grilles in more detail ? Thank you

 

Any plastic trim pry tool will work on the tweeters. I have these: https://www.crutchfield.com/p_126CR3...nel-Tools.html
Much of the Defender just snaps together...it's like a full size version of the Lego model.

To get at the woofers, watch this video:

 

I used this trim removal tool. It literally takes less than ten seconds to remove the grille. I have another rattle in my driver's door panel - I'm taking that off to dynamat the inside this weekend.

 

thank you both!

 

2024 update.

Front door, passenger side, bottom large Meridian door speaker started vibrating like crazy (again) this winter. I believe things contract in the cold weather, clearance develops -- and rattle.

Mostly on my phone calls with a particular work colleague with a deep voice. As with before, if we lightly pressed on the edge of the metallic colored speaker grille, rattle went away. So I am thinking it's got to be the speaker grille being a bit loose on there. At this point -- I was either thinking buy a new door insert panel from JLR because life's too short for a rattle ... or... perhaps drive the car off the cliff, the rattle was ridiculous.

I did chk to make sure it wasn't the speaker blown. It was fine.

So today I had a go at the door panel. I removed the little tape strips that I'd put over the metal tabs in 2022 -- the tabs holding the main speaker grille on. I then got a tube of clear silicone, and gave each mounting point a good blob of silicone. Medium dabs all the way around at each point. I was judicious .. but not so much that any silicone squeezed through the front.

Let me caution you that this does not look "professional or pretty" from behind. But it's invisible when things are reassembled. My first thought was to use a hot glue gun, but I remember from being in the headliner of my D2 in heat that hot glue gun bonds come undone over time in car interiors. So -- the silicone seemed better.

Let it cure 4 hours, put it in the car -- boom, no rattle. Tight as a steel drum in that door panel now from the speaker.

Car smells like silicone from the off gassing.

 

Awesome garage engineering. Good for you taking this on yourself.

I read your initial post and commented to myself that the manufacturer would blame the lack of tight crimping of the tabs on the chip shortage.

I hope my 10/23 build has the updated chips…

 

Here's my latest iteration. Still had speakers rattling. This works -- not pretty though! It's the clear silicone I mentioned above, and it secures the metal tabs better than the factory method. My hope is that it stays a little rubbery when cured and this helps quell the vibrations too.

 

I'm going to look into doing this very soon. Do you have any pictures of your progress? any issues with using 5ml thick material?

Years ago I sound deadened my entire s2000 with dynamat. But I learned that that particular material is for resonance and doesn't need every square inch covered to produce the desired effect. Closed cell foam = different story.

Just curious to know how much coverage on each door you did to realize a real benefit in noise, outside of just the rattling. I'm mostly after better sound/quality from the factory speakers than quieting the car down.