Door closing onomatopoeia

[Beat Army]

Proud gladiator owner for 1 month and 1200 miles. 3 of my doors make a normal sound when I close them…kind of a muffled “schmunk.” The driver side rear door makes more a deeper, louder “thunk” that has a sort of hollow reverberation. It might take just a hair more force to shut it, but not much. Closes fine, stay closed. Nothing looks misaligned externally. No obvious issues with the gaskets either. Anyone experienced this and had the dealer look at it and if so were they able to fix it? What did they do?

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[Mac Attack]

Proud gladiator owner for 1 month and 1200 miles. 3 of my doors make a normal sound when I close them…kind of a muffled “schmunk.” The driver side rear door makes more a deeper, louder “thunk” that has a sort of hollow reverberation. It might take just a hair more force to shut it, but not much. Closes fine, stay closed. Nothing looks misaligned externally. No obvious issues with the gaskets either. Anyone experienced this and had the dealer look at it and if so were they able to fix it? What did they do?

Oh Man, you are one in a million...you need to take it to the closest Jeep Dealer immediately. The right rear coil spring is failing. Go Army!

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Really?
Mine should have gone in long ago then.

Something like this is almost always a tiny very slight difference in how the striker is adjusted. If there's no rattle, no leak, no other problem you may have trouble convincing a dealer that there is a problem.
Some may offer to adjust - and you can do that. It's likely a VERY slight difference in how deep the striker is set. There's nothing broken, nothing really "wrong", nothing to replace.

IMO, dealers don't possess the expertise to properly or carefully adjust strikers. They will adjust it until it opens and closes and say it's fine. A great body shop would make sure they all match.

Strikers can be adjusted (on most vehicles anyway) up, down, in or out as needed.
I'd bet that's all it is -

 

[Beat Army]

Oh Man, you are one in a million...you need to take it to the closest Jeep Dealer immediately. The right rear coil spring is failing. Go Army!

I think yesterday was the start of another 14 game winning streak!

 

[sharpsicle]

Is this for real?

I mean, are you really asking for a dealership fix because a door sounds slightly different when it closes?

 

[IanNubbit]

Really?
Mine should have gone in long ago then.

Something like this is almost always a tiny very slight difference in how the striker is adjusted. If there's no rattle, no leak, no other problem you may have trouble convincing a dealer that there is a problem.
Some may offer to adjust - and you can do that. It's likely a VERY slight difference in how deep the striker is set. There's nothing broken, nothing really "wrong", nothing to replace.

IMO, dealers don't possess the expertise to properly or carefully adjust strikers. They will adjust it until it opens and closes and say it's fine. A great body shop would make sure they all match.

Strikers can be adjusted (on most vehicles anyway) up, down, in or out as needed.
I'd bet that's all it is -

We don’t really get paid to make the latches perfect tbh. Don’t feel good about it, but also can’t work for free. There’s no labor operations for adjustments and it’s loosing battle to get paid for little things like that form Chrysler. On another note, I know the latch on the door side is not adjustable and auto locates with the bolts. The striker is adjustable though. Would be hard to tell if that’s the issue without a video showing the latch while slowly closing and pictures of where the wear is occurring on the striker and latch

 

[BrooksC]

My driver's side rear door sounded the same way. More clank than thud. The latch was not going into the center of the striker. You could see the marks where the top of the latch was dragging. I loosened the torqs bolts on the striker and moved it up a smidge to where it was centered in the latch opening. Sounds like the rest now.

 

[Beat Army]

Is this for real?

I mean, are you really asking for a dealership fix because a door sounds slightly different when it closes?

Not super worried about it…just thought I’d ask to see how common it might be…never owned a Jeep before, also never experienced this on any other vehicle I have owned rented or borrrowed. As long as the door shuts and doesn’t leak or fly open I’ll most likely just live with it.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

We don’t really get paid to make the latches perfect tbh. Don’t feel good about it, but also can’t work for free. There’s no labor operations for adjustments and it’s loosing battle to get paid for little things like that form Chrysler. On another note, I know the latch on the door side is not adjustable and auto locates with the bolts. The striker is adjustable though. Would be hard to tell if that’s the issue without a video showing the latch while slowly closing and pictures of where the wear is occurring on the striker and latch

IF its a real issue I've found the best bet is to pay a good body shop to do the adjustment. I normally do my own but in the case of my show car the shop did it for me when I had them touch up the hood for a rock dent - they did it no charge but then I'd paid them well for fixing the hood and blending in the paint so well.

Every latch I've dealt with was held in by countersunk head screws/bolts and only the striker could be adjusted.

I'm used to latches that are set by the screws, door hinges that adjust 360 degrees and then some, and a striker that adjusts pretty much any direction and in a fair amount.

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