[BlkSTIAL]

Driving home from work yesterday, I decided enough was enough. The rear view mirror rattled all the time. It would rattle when the car was idling, cruising, high speed, stereo turned up, or just looking at it the wrong way. Four years of constant rattling was too much. The only answers I found were: turn down the stereo, put a rubber band around it, or my favorite, you bought a sports car, deal with it. If this wasn't my DD I would, but driving 100 miles a day with the mirror mocking me with it rattles was too much. Enough of my rant, here is my solution. Suggestions are welcome. Oh yes, this is the auto dimming w/compass for my '04.

Removing the Mirror: I'm not going to re-invent the wheel on this one. Here are a few good links.
Auto-dimming compass rear view mirror install - ScoobyMods
http://subaruparts.com/install/2002icompassmirror.pdf

Disassembling the Mirror:
There are several tabs to undo to get the mirror apart. I used a flat head screwdriver. I would recommend the smallest one you can find and be very careful when pressing down on the tabs. The plastic is really brittle and the tabs break easily. Put the screwdriver underneath where the front meets the back casing (with the point of screwdriver point to the back) and lightly press down. You will either here the click of the tab being released, or the crack of the tab breaking. Hopefully you hear the first, but if not, with my solution, it is not the end of the world. Here are a few pics to show where the tabs are located.
Top:

Bottom:

Right:

And Left:

And for kicks, the blurry pic of the screwdriver:


Now you just pull the front of the case away from the back. The mirror and the electronics will stay on the back case. I didn't try to take that part off.
So, the hardest part is done. If you haven't totally destroyed your mirror case and cussing me, here is the next step.
The materials I used:


Good ole' JB Weld. Now you see why a broken tab is not the end of the world. After stirring up the JB Weld, I applied a generous coat where the front meets the back (lip with the tab holes).
Here is another crappy pic:


I couldn't take too many pics b/c this dries fast. Now if you're the type of person to say, "Hey, I wanna take my rear view mirror apart AGAIN this weekend.", this may not be the solution for you. If anything electronically ever happens, it's probably going in the trash. Once getting the JB Weld around the diameter of the front mirror case, put it back together. Sorry no pics of that. I hope you are able to accomplish that on your own. To the next step!

So that may have been enough, but I thought I would go the extra mile. It's not real pretty, but I thought it might help. I got out the silicon, put it on a toothpick and ran it around the crease between the front and back of the mirror case. Pic:

I cleaned up the access with my finger the best I could. Like I said, that part may not be needed, but I just wanted to be sure all rattles were gone, and where the front case met the back seemed to be the culprit.

Now just let it dry and put it back on. Here is a pic right before I reinstalled it. Doesn't look too bad:


That's all I got. As of right now, I'm rattle free. That includes back roads, highway, speed bumps and stereo. Hope this will help someone out. If I'm missing something, let me know, I did this pretty quickly.

[tuan]

i may have to try this. the rubber band trick held me over at 1st but now that i have turned up the bass, its driving me nuts!!

[SubySteve]

I did the same thing with liquid nail and it lasted about a month. Now I rattle again, dam JL subs.