Buzzes, rattles, and creaks are stopping me from liking my Prius. Need a solution! :-)

turn up the radio

 

I've never had a car that did not creak or snap or crackle except for one, the Cadillac Eldorado, never made a sound. The bumper did fall off eventually along with the headliner and just about everything else. The sounds could be a good sign that the vehicle has good flexibility. I noticed the noises increased with the higher tire PSI.
Are you running standard PSI?

 

It's under warranty. Take it back to the dealer.

 

Agreed... if it is making so much noise then I'd definitely take it back to the dealer. Drive with the service rep (have him drive) and look for bumpy roads to drive on. When he is driving make sure the windows are closed, A/C is off (to make the interior quieter by eliminating the fan noise), turn the radio off (obviously). If you hear the noises and he doesn't then either the guy is deaf or you're hearing things (doubtful).

I know how frustrating extraneous sounds can be in a brand new car. It would drive me crazy. I have close to 100k on my 2004 and it's still pretty tight but the rattles I hear are infrequent and only happen on the worse type of roads. Also, as someone else mentioned, make sure the tires pressures are those recommended by Toyota. Let us know how you make out.

 

Which wheels do you have? The lower the side profile the rougher the ride.

 

I finally got mine fixed. After the dealer tried to convince me that the only reason I hear rattles is because the Prius is extremely quiet, he agreed to try the rear seat TSB and also installed panel foam behind some of the panels (hatch/trunk area, I think). My rattles are finally gone. I recommend, like others, that you take it in and don't let them BS you (rattles are tough to find).

 

I started a thread requesting people to just post on solutions on rattles and not the usual 'turn up radio' responses. It came to a big fat dead end.
I agree, this is a big issue for me. I want to like the car, but see myself keeping it for 1 year only.
Tech guys on this site really need to take this more seriously.
Maybe this is proof of Toyota lack of oversight to have flagship model rattle so much.
Apart from that, this is an amazing car.

 

Yep, they should be able to. From what I've seen of Nissan TSBs for rattles, they might try to put in foam pieces between parts. I've successfully had rattles fixed on my Nissans while they were under warranty.

Definitely be a descriptive as you can about where and when it occurs, esp. if it only happens when it's hot or cold or all the time.

You might want to have them do a ride along to hear your rattles. The easiest ones to fix are the ones that happen all the time. Hard to repro ones are the worst.

 

I've noticed a couple of loud 'click' type noises in my V w/ATP and it was driving me crazy. Here's what I found and how I solved MY problems. Note that these may not be the same things you're experiencing.

I carry pens and a small can of eyeglass cleaner in my glove box. I also moved my wheel lock key to the glove box. Every time I made a hard turn, I would hear the sound of these items hitting the side of the glove box, which, do to a design change for this year, does not have the soft surface of previous years. For the glove box, I cut some 'moleskin' type material and stuck it to both interior sides of the lower glove box. This greatly reduced the noise coming from this area. I have not done the upper box yet.

The other problem area was a surprise to me. I store my sunglasses and regular glasses in the carrier in the roof. Yep, same hard plastic sides. This caused the same 'clacking' noise, but also a rattle if the glasses were to one side or the other touching the side plastic. I found some 1/16" dense foam, cut it to size and stuck it up there and that completely eliminated the noise from this area. The rattle was tricky because it was intermittent, it only occurred when the glasses were touching the side. Now solved.

The other noise I notice but have no solution for is the seat belt buckle hitting the side of the interior sometimes. Don't want to put anything on them to interfere with use. Or on the pillar for cosmetic reasons.
Again, this may not be your problem, but these worked for the majority of my interior noise complaints.