Well, I've had my 06 530 for three months now, and soon after delivery became a member of the rattle club.

There were what I thought were two rattles - one, the widely discussed dashboard passenger side creak; and two, the rear parcel shelf rattle. I investigated and treated most of the source suggestions on this forum, and several additional ones that I thought could be the cause. Much foam, silicone spray, and even WD40 was in evidence for the last several weeks.

After two trips to two different dealers, and several hours of my own sleuthing, here was the fix:

1: front dashboard: the culprit was underneath the A pillar cover. I noticed that the sound disappeared when I closed the passeneger door with a clothe wedged intio the frontmost corner, right in the A pillar area. However, I did not have the nerve to pull this cover off myself, due to the airbag location. The dealer discovered and fixed this sound - it is 100% gone. What a difference!

2. rear parcel shelf: In my case, this was two separate sounds. The most prevelant, a kind of cracking sound when going over uneven pavement, turned out to be the passenger doors, I discovered. The inside area where the leather/plastic moulding meets the metal of the door, at the rearmost part of the door, just below window level was the source of the noise. I could reproduce the sound by slightly pulling the moulding away from the door (probably less than a millimeter in distance). The simple fix was some padding (carpet underpad, actually) wedged in that tiny crevace over a distance of about 10 cm. I did both rear doors and... silence.

There is one rear-oriented sound remaining, a kind of fluttering sound that sounds like the roof. It is so infrequent that I am going to leave it for a while (which will probably turn out to be mere days) and enjoy the newly solid tranquil ride.

If anyone has a flutter fix I would love to hear it...

 

you must have a nice dealer. I'd rather tear my A-pillar off than drop it off. A. they give you a lame Pontiac loaner car, and B. they are just assholes here. I came in to get my brakes looked at and they told me to take it back to the dealer I bought the car from. Aside from scheduled maint...I'l be doing all the work on my car.

 

Can you post a picture of the area in item 2 ?
I have a very similar noise coming from the rear on the car.
It would be great if I coould pin point that area.
Thank You