Forgive me if this has been asked, I couldn't find a thread on it.

I'm shopping for a new 3rd gen. The 85 I used to have was really noisy in the back hatch area. Sweaks and squalks practically drove me batty. I hear GM made some improvements to the 91-92 3rd gen to help eliminate body stability. were these majot improments, or so minor that I most people would never notice the difference?

 

Most body noises in thirdgens come from the dash area. At least all the ones I've been in. My 92 doesn't make any noticeable noises from the hatch/trunk area. I don't know if GM made any tweaks or changes to the bodies to eliminate noises or not, but you can always install a set of subframe connectors. They are supposed to take care of most, if not all, body flex noises. You may also have had a misaligned hatch or worn hatch mount causing the noise in your old 85

 

Interesting... I see in another thread that GM improved some of the door mechanisms in 88, so that's nice. I never did check the hatch mount on my 85, I always heard camaros were just naturally noisy back there. I'll have to make sure I check that out on my next one

 

The changes are so cosmetically minor that you probably won't be able to spot them. But you can definitely feel a difference. The early thirdgens have a ton of creaks, and rattles. Even when they're low mileage they're rattle traps. Later thirdgens tend to be much more solid. There isn't much you can do to the older cars to update them... Beyond adding the various rubber bumpers, new weatherstripping, etc. Adding subframe connectors would probably help.

 

One other thing GM started doing on the later ones(90+ I think) is that they glued the seams in addition to welding them. Basically they used an adhesive on all the seams before they spot welded them. Helps to reduce the noises as the metal seams can't shift as much and if they do move, there is the glue in between to keep metal from rubbing on metal.

 

92's and maybe 91, some of the cars got funky little rubber bumpers on the sides of the quarters to stabilize the hatch a bit more. my 92 has them.

but on most cars, new weather stripping will quite the car quite a bit.

 

I would check the hatch alignment I had a 97 that when I bought also had a noisy hatch. This was a 4th gen but I was able to loosen 2 nuts or bolts and the whole latch would move up or down then just play with it if you go to far the hatch will not latch and if it's to high it will rattle