Hi everybody. I have a 2014 US Mirage 1.2 CVT with 94k miles. All of a sudden, the car has developed a harsh vibration while idling, with a noise like a loose heat shield or similar. The noise gets worse as you add load to the idling engine, such as A/C, or accelerate more aggressively. I also tried putting into drive with the parking brake on and AC on and that really makes it rattle. As the RPMs increase the issue smooths out and quiets down again. I can't seem to find an exact location where the rattle is coming from. The engine's performance seems normal.
To me it seems like a torn engine mount causing excessive engine block movement and vibration, resulting in noise and harshness. I had someone add and remove load from the engine while I looked at the engine mounts, to see if I could see excessive slack indicating a torn mount. It seemed as though the passenger side mount was pretty sloppy, but it is a metal can with a stud sticking out, so I can't inspect the internal rubber for damage. Besides, an engine that vibrates this much from the factory may have sloppy mounts to try to contain it anyway, so I'm not certain I've found the issue.
Anybody else had this issue or similar? Thanks.