Help! Vibe Black Hole

[ripsubaru.hellovibe]

Hi Vibers & Vibettes,Hope you can help me with a couple of issues we're having with the cargo area in our silver '09 Vibe... see photo below (which I grabbed from Google images and edited with arrows):http://i.imgur.com/PItpU.jpgThe small upper arrow points to a little plastic "plug" just below the tie-ring, right where the wall and floor meet. Our plug is lost - any recommendations how/where to find a replacement?The large lower arrow points to a small removable panel in the right wall of the cargo area. "Somebody" had the bright idea to stow a couple small items in there, which subsequently fell down into a "black hole" and defy all efforts to retrieve them.Any suggestions (beyond "don't remove small plugs and lose them" and "don't stash stuff in unlined black holes")?Thanks!

[KITT222]

A GM dealer or a salvage yard would probably have that plastic piece, or maybe even rockauto.com. As for retrieving the small items that have fallen into the abyss, I suggest a magnet tied to a string, if they're metal. If not, I think it's easy to remove the whole plastic piece from around the subwoofer, and getting down into there.

[star_deceiver]

Open up the spare tire compartment. Pull out the spare and see what you can do about reaching under the plastic and up.

[09vGT]

Maybe it'll be a bag of cash!

[trb]

That plug is the cover for the rear shock absorber access. My car is missing the driver's side one. I have about 4 or 5 wrecked Vibes in my area, and one day in the next 2 weeks I'll have some time to stop by and hopefully grab that piece for a few bucks. You can probably get it from a GM dealer too, but I'll bet it is a $20+ part, if not more. I tried looking it up on a GM parts website, but could not find that exact part. If I get a chance to look for it, you want me to grab one for you?As for the dropped item, is it under the cargo compartment? The whole cargo compartment can be removed by removing a few bolts after you remove the rear tire cover.

[tpollauf]

Don't know if this helps you out at all BUT it's worth a shot. Here is what our pass side quarter panel looks like from the inside with ALL the trim & panels removed! Whatever you dropped couldn't have traveled that far. We opened up our Vibe this much to run some cables to the XM module just above the subwoofer (removed in this pic). Again hope this helps somewhat Good luck

[beemerphile1]

Remove the large floor panel. Remove the black tray on the passenger side. You should then be able to retrieve whatever fell inside that area.

[vibenvy]

I too have experienced this "black hole" you are referring to. I was swapping the OEM halogen bulbs in the reverse lights of my mom's 2009 GT out for SilverStar bulbs. I ended up dropping one of the halogen bulbs into the "black hole" and as everyone else has suggested, I ended up having to remove quite a few of the trim pieces from the cargo area. It wasn't bad at all though. Some are held on with bolts and others pop into and out of place. Just don't pull and/or push too hard so you don't break any plastic tabs.

[trb]

Hey, I got the plug you are missing today when I picked up the other parts I needed for my Vibe. Send me a PM with your address and I'll mail it out to you.

[KITT222]

I actually got into my Vibe underneath there. All you really need to do is open the floor, take out the entire tray with the jack and such and you should be able to access it.

[ripsubaru.hellovibe]

Thanks to you all, we managed to get the stuff out. Boy, do we feel dumb. But seriously, this forum is one of the finest I've ever had the privilege of joining. Thanks again, G-d bless, and happy Vibing to all!

[dustie]

youve gotta tell us now.. what was in there?

[alex_nrv]

Quote, originally posted by dustie »youve gotta tell us now.. what was in there?LOL I guess we won't know! Hoping it was not the plastic plug... !!!