I've recently bought an 2018 S-Max Titanium 2.0 and I'm very happy with it apart from one thing - there's an annoying knocking/rattle/creak that I think is coming from the offside B-pillar, where the driver's seatbelt disappears. It happens whenever I go over bumps and potholes and even if I break sharply - basically, whenever the car flexes in some way.

It took me ages to diagnose where it was coming from, and I have considered the rear door and the suspension but after sitting in the back and having my wife drive down a bumpy country road, I'm pretty confident it's coming from the B-pillar. It's not super-loud or anything (certainly not as loud as some of the videos I've seen of noisy B-pillars!). My wife can hear it from the passenger seat if the radio is off and everything is quiet but most of the time it's just me in the driver's seat that it bothers.

Has anyone else experienced this? I'm aware of B-pillar issues in other Ford models but nothing about the S-Max.

Also, I'm coming to end of my three-year Ford base warranty - does anyone know whether this would be covered? I enquired at my local Ford dealer and they said that if it wasn't something that is covered on warranty, it would be £90 just to investigate, which feels a bit of a gamble. They suggested contacting the dealer I bought it from (Evans Halshaw) but I'm not confident that they'd a) consider it a problem b) be able to resolve it.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

 

 

I’m guessing no one has experienced this problem in an S-Max then? 😀

Well, just to keep you updated, I took my car to the dealer and at first they claimed they couldn’t find the source of the noise (to be honest, I suspect they did little more than a basic “health check”). As feared, they wanted to charge me a £90 diagnostic fee, which they quickly reduced to £45 (again, I suspect they did very little). When I discovered they hadn’t even stripped the door panels down like they claimed they were going to, I asked them to take another look, and this time they booked it in for a decent 3-day stretch.

It was actually on the fourth day they got in touch to tell me they’d located the source of the noise in the seat belt adjuster and did I want to pay £150 to have it fixed? I pointed out the car was still in warranty and they agreed it was covered. When I went to collect the car though, they said it was the door striker pin. I asked about the seat belt adjuster and the guy was a bit vague but seemed to think both had been done. Either way, it was all on warranty and I’m pleased to say it seems to have done the trick. No more knocking!

So for future reference, if any S-Max owners are bothered by an annoying knocking/rattle/creak that appears to be coming from the B-pillar, it could be the seat belt adjuster or the door striker pin.

My 2018 S-Max has always had this annoying rattle/creak apparently from the B-pillar. I wonder what your garage actually did to solve it. I will take a look at the door striker and the seatbelt adjuster.