Evoque Squeaking and Creaking Noise Solved

I have had a squeaking/creaking sound when driving over rough surfaces coming from the rear of my U.S. spec 2013 Evoque Coupe since new and it has gotten progressively worse. I found the source. There are two large pieces of styrofoam framing opposite sides of the spare tire. I guess this is to fill the void (hide wiring looms) and act as an insulator from road and tire noise. As its made of styrofoam, it produces a squeaking sound when rubbing against other surfaces. It's not securely fastened which causes movement and makes the problem worse. As it frames the tire I pushed towels in the two 1/2" gaps between it and the spare tire to stop the movement and stop the noise. Finally no squeaks! This is really a cheap oversight of engineering that shouldn't happen in a Range Rover.

There are a lot of squeaks and rattles in an Evoque that shouldn't be there in a car at Evoque's price point. When companies like Dacia and Suzuki can put out really cheaply built cars costing ⅓rd the price of a Range Rover with not a single squeak or rattle it illustrates just how far behind LR is in developing its vehicles compared even to the "budget" end of the market. I just wish LR would spend even half the time it spends getting the next model year ready on eliminating defects in existing models, then we might get vehicles worth the very high prices being charged for them.
I'm sure if the Chairman/ CEO of LR had to drive my new Evoque even as a free company car he would reject it on the number of rattles and squeaks in it. My last Evoque had only one noise defect on delivery which was a defective door seal, it was fixed and for the most part that car ran with only the odd intermittent rattle, but 3 years of production later the build quality seems to have got worse and not improved with the gains in experience of the work force and management. It appears that, especially management, have learned nothing from the number of vehicles that get returned to dealers for remedial work on rattles that still get built into the cars 3years after production started, also despite many many hours that dealership staff have to spend trying to locate and cure squeaks and rattles that must be being invoiced back to LR.

We had the similar creaking from the back of our new Evoque and it was not the foam round the spare wheel. We took everything out, parcel shelf, spare wheel, foam, jack, seats locked up, seats down etc.etc. etc. it was still there even on the smoothest road.

Took the car back to the dealer " fix it or my money back". Fortunatly I have a good dealer although they are 125 miles away. Service manager went out in the car and straight away heard the noise, unfortunatly it spent 4 days in the workshop as they could not track it down. They removed every piece of trim from the back of the car, seats the lot! Then carefully re-assembled it adding insulation packing between every item that could possibly rattle. Two weeks on and its still rattle/creak/squeak free BUT the worrying thing is they did not actually identify the offending components.

I will give it one more week to see if it returns then I will be on to LRCS for my expenses, I have receipts on my desk for £98 worth of diesel for taking the Evoque back and for returning home and back to the dealership in a courtesy car, total 500 miles - then there are two days of my time lost to compensate for.

We are only 5 weeks into ownership of our new very expensive car and its already spent 9 days in dock at the dealership. On collection we noticed a couple of marks in the paint on the plastic bottom cladding of two doors, we returned home in a courtesy car whilst the Evoque spent its first week in the body shop.

It is no wonder LR products cost so much if they are paying dealers 4 days work to fix rattles which are down to poor QC and poor management practices.

I too had a major clanking noise. couldn't figure out where, in the end all I needed was grease on the latching mechanism. Talked with my service advisor on my one year service. said he had the same thing on an Evoque. couldn't figure it out until they put grease on the latch as a last resort -- problem solved!

I tried the white lithium grease following 'dasevoque's' tip on the tailgate latch mechanism. Now after having padded the styrofoam and this greasing method there is no noise coming from the rear, just the regular tire hum from the road. I used the spray white lithium grease (easy to find at an auto parts store) as it makes it possible to get to all the hard to reach areas. Its like a chain lube, once sprayed the liquid carrier evaporates over time leaving only the grease.

Ours was not the tailgate latch, we had that issue with the previous Evoque and that was fixed by replacing the bottom trim panel with a later design which had a larger cut-out (front to back) to clear the gate catch. LR know of the problem.
       
Later version on the right with the checked boot mat.

As your first (2012 ?) Evoque had the problem, I wonder at what point in the Evoque production this problem was corrected. The factory replacement part fix would be better than the grease.

Our first Evoque was built December 2011 and the replacement part was fitted October 2013 after suffering nearly two years with the rattle. If you are suffering from the same problem there will be tell-tale marks on the trim as per photo.

There was also a revised top trim in the tailgate to address the problem of the hinges making contact.

I photographed all of the rattle contact points I found, tailgate upper and lower areas, front and rear door cards etc. and sent them to LRCS via Mike, so they are aware of the problem areas that I had found. The only item we did not get fixed was the sun roof blind, so we just drove with it closed all the time, so that was £1k wasted on the pano roof!.
To sum up total Cr@p for a car costing up to £50k, LR senior management should go fall on thier swords - or worse, fall over in front of an Audi!.

I have this problem with mine ... though mine is a LOT worse - I'll post up some photos in a second. I wonder if this is also causing a rattle that's been present in mine for a while. Going to go to Taggarts and inform them of this tomorrow I think.
Also there's a weird problem started with the tailgate (I have the power one) which is that when I open it, it opens quite quickly, stutters, opens a little more, and then stops. Pressing the button again or pressing the button on the boot itself makes it open all the way. They're going to need to sort that too - seems to have happened after it was in getting the bumper replaced and the tailgate painted which is annoying.

(07-08-2014 07:48pm)m_101 Wrote:  I have this problem with mine ... though mine is a LOT worse - I'll post up some photos in a second. I wonder if this is also causing a rattle that's been present in mine for a while. Going to go to Taggarts and inform them of this tomorrow I think.
Also there's a weird problem started with the tailgate (I have the power one) which is that when I open it, it opens quite quickly, stutters, opens a little more, and then stops. Pressing the button again or pressing the button on the boot itself makes it open all the way. They're going to need to sort that too - seems to have happened after it was in getting the bumper replaced and the tailgate painted which is annoying.

M-101, if you pm me an e-mail address I will send you the powerpoint file I did for the dealer last October, illustrates the contact points at the top and bottom of the tailgate.