Rattling

Hey All,
I just developed a rattle from the flimsy plastic driver's seat border at the bottom where the seat adjustment controls are.
Any experience with that and/or any fixes?
Thanks!

Not a rattle for me but the outer cover piece is loose and I'll need to get that fixed.

Take it off and apply some CCF to the back side of the panel. Get some cloth tape and apply a layer where any pins are. Pay particular attention to where the rattle is emanating. It will no longer rattle once it's treated.

Mine was replaced about a year ago after it broke. It's broken again and out of warranty. It seems Ford didn't redesign the part so no point in paying my $100 deductible only to have it break again. So I used black gaffer tape to keep it together.

Ok, thanks! I'll attend to that.
Pretty weak point in that price vehicle!

I had a rattle on rear passenger's side that only occurs on the highway I have been trying to hunt down.

I found the rear passenger bolt threaded on by 3 turns. The plastic trim on the chair pulls up the bolt to prevent it from going in all the way and as a result the plastic cover for the spring is lose and so is the trim for the chair. I used a drill to shave it down, utilize an impact driver with torx bit to monkey it on. Now its tight and secured, need to road test sometime this week.

Did not fix the rattle issue.

Continuing to hunt it down now that my baby car seat is no longer in the suv and I want to figure it out. the right black bolts were also lose and I tightened them and I taped the covers, will do a road test later. I also discovered something flappy in the spring bottom thats lose but couldn’t get to it today, will take a photo next time

Highway rattling/flapping/tapping are usually the undershield on the bottom of the car. Have you ruled that out? Plastic retainers fail and should ber replaced with M6 nuts/fender washers (stainless steel).

Its definitely interior, wife push around the seat and certain spots stopped it. my car only has 6k miles on it. I just hate wasting 2-3 hours dropping off and picking from service.

My 2025 had a small rattle which was the bar that you pull to move the back driver side seat forward and back so it might be that. I moved the seat to a different position and pushed down on the bar for a bit and so far have not heard it again. Funny thing is my old car had same thing.

Tried that already, also tried it in different positions. Rattle continues after tightening. It's definitely coming from the center, interior, rear passenger side where the metal rail meets the plastic. I have kids, there's even a possibility they dropped stuff in between. The rattle only occurs above 60mph, not any city driving/hills/etc. And it is a plastic tapping against metal

Unscrewed the plastic trim on center rail rear passenger where I tighten previously and rear screw in the back that not pictured. I popped off the front plastic cover halfway and lined it with some double sided sticky but did not peel one side until I am sure it is the fix. I prefer double sided sticky because it has a foam center and stops movement for rattles and works better in heat. there was a screw in the center of the plastic trim rail cover that connected the rear to the front, I couldn't take off because the clip wasnt unclipping and I didn’t want to break it.

What I found was clear indication the metal rail and plastic trim were tapping and rubbing due to marks on the metal rail. I circled the contact points.

In the front I lined the metal to plastic contact points with double sided and where the trim met the metal. On the rail it’s a 6 inch piece. In the rear, its two half inch pieces I wedged in there, one on each side but the photo only shows one side because I wedged it in later.

Fingers crossed that this fixes it.

Edit -

Also found a spring loaded thing under each chair and lined it with 3m foam for the contact points where metal meets metal. Did not solve the problem.
Also thought maybe the all season 3rd row mat was hitting the chair rail, so I took that out as well to test. Did not solve the problem.

Adding all the foam did not work for the high speed rattle, but the car is now as quiet as a mouse over the 1000 city bumps I go over on a daily. This is definitely an engineering design issue, theses parts should've been lined with foam to stop rattles and the plastic screw caps same thing, should be lined with foam (electric tape does the same). So I started exploring rattle forums under the body of the vehicle as @Cdubya suggested and jacked up one side of the vehicle on stands. I found the following:
1. passenger side under body cover (covered in multiple threads) had a bolt that was threaded 2 times near the rear wheel, took about 16 turns to bolt it down, I'll take photos later. This lose bolt would have cause the body cover to flap at high speeds and hit the the mid pipe muffler but was not necessarily the sound that was bothering me. This is the second bolt I have found just literally hanging by a thread, the quality control group and the assemblers are lazy turds or pissed at the vehicle because they can't afford it. I did not have any of these issues in my 2020 Ford Edge ST.
2. The passenger side under body cover cover bolts were also unusually lose, contributing to a flapping under body, about 2 turns to tighten each one.
3. The passenger side clip (just one), was also popped off, I will take off and replace with metal bolt when I have time. I pushed it back in for now.
4. All the heat shield bolts were not hand tight, each one could take 1.5 turns until it was torqued on to hand tight, which could contribute to rattling at speed.
5. There is another heat shield on top of the muffler, same thing, those bolts took another 1.5 turns until it was torqued on to hand tight.
6. Most importantly.... There are two overlapping pieces of heat shield in the center of the vehicle (where the rear chairs are) that are not bolted to the body, but at high speeds would definitely tap and occurred "exactly" where the noise was coming from in the cabin. These overlapping pieces have a slight gap between the body to the shield and to the overlapping shield. I utilizes 3m high heat, waterproof all weather double sided sticky to solve it. Since the gap was slightly larger, I double stacked each 3m sticky between the heat shields and where the shield meets the body.

I will take photos of everything and upload later.

Took the vehicle on a road test thing morning, 65, 70, 75, 80, 85, noise solved!

I spent a total of 20 mins tightening bolts and adding the 3m foam under the vehicle.

The Explorer ST is definitely not a starter car if you can't hunt down rattles or issues with some basic tools.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01BU7038A/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
These work on mounting auto parts such as HIDs and work for years,e.g. even after 8 years of mounting through summer heat, snow, you still have to pull and clean it off for it not to stick.

Triangle piece is the overlapping heat shield that contacts the body if vibrating at high speeds.I am pointing to the clip that was basically off and the bolt near the rear wheel threaded on by two turns. I am also pointing to a location behind mid pipe where bolts were also could be tightened, the pictures are not all inclusive. I suggest you hunt around with a wrench and start tightening everything.

I also examined control arm, sway links, on front right side, nothing appears to be obviously wrong to create a low speed clunk in the passenger front. Even poked around the battery bay, nothing obviously lose.

At a price point of $60,000 and monthly payments of $700 per month, I would have hoped Ford could have actually built a car that wouldn't fall apart in less than a few years and frustrated owners wouldn't have to get their hands dirty and have to solve problems themselves! Guess it was too much to ask for! It is shameful the number of shortcuts, bad decisions and general bad design and build quality, engineereing/testing or lack thereof. They're gonna get their asses handed to them once China enters this market and I'm a loyal 40 year Ford/Mercury/LIncoln customer!

You're getting that low speed passenger side clunk too? I thought it may be something that my mechanic left loose when he installed turbos and downpipes. He had to drop the subframe for that.
If you find what that is, please inform us and I will do the same if I track my clunk down.

Unfortunately, it's called planned obsolescence! No dealer wants a car that will last a lifetime without serious repair work ... at "any" cost.

I've never leased a vehicle but it seems that is the best way to go nowadays and every 3 years get a brand new vehicle!

I installed a bigger intercooler, the only step I missed was zip tying the intercooler to the frame because you cut them to install the intercooler. I realized the missed step after buttoning everything up, but the intercooler is also secured by a bunch of bolts. Its just a pain in the ass to unscrew the front bumper bolts. I doubt the missed step is the cause of the sound.