2011 prius = the rattle machine

My car came from Tsutsumi line 1 on 07/09. Lots of rattles plus headlights and brake light switch way out of adjustment. Everything else has been OK.

 

MikeR5: It could be other factors.
1) I live in a hot arid climate so perhaps our summer heat made the plastics even more brittle causing creaks and rattles.
2) I hate to suggest it, but if my car was made just after New Years, maybe the plant workers were "not in the groove" yet.

 

It'll be fine. You buy the car, drive it home, park in the garage, adjust headlamps so they are not shining in the sky, air up the tires, follow the de-rattle/de-squeak document, next day you have a quiet riding Prius

Mike

 

30K miles, no rattles. I do hear annoying static/electronic noises from the hybrid system 10-15% of the time but they're not rattles.

Plant code = 5 (Fugimatsu plant)
Manufacture date = 05/09

 

Interesting - 2 from plant code 0 with rattles and one from plant code 5 with no rattles. I wonder if there is a trend? Maybe it's time to cook up a rattle survey with date of mfg and plant code data...

 

Plant 0, mfg. date 01/10 -- NO rattles! (36,000+ miles).

 

Hmmm - same run as mine...maybe it has to do with less heat and more humidity. But then again, we can't gauge a trend on 4 responses. A survey would be a slicker way to get lots more data.

 

Hertz rental Prii.
1 Tsutsumi plant line #2
October 2009

36k miles, no rattles in the few miles I drove today. I'll report back after our 5 day trip.

Mike

 

I did.

Fix 2010/2011 Prius Rattles for 99 cents (Neat Version)

 

I was going to put together a new thread with a survey in it to see if we could get a trend on where and when the more rattle-prone Prii were manufactured. Unfortunately, this forum only allows "Polls" where the answer buttons are mutually exclusive with a limit of 25 choices. To do a survey, respondents would need to be able to answer more than one question such as plant code and date of manufacture. Oh well, maybe someday it will be possible here.

If anyone knows how to do a true "survey thread" (e.g. click on more than one answer) here, please let me know.

 

You can't possibly list every date of manufacture. Just three plant codes with yes/no rattles for a total of 6 choices and you can ask people to list date of manufacture in their replies.

 

I thought of something like that too, but if you say either "yes" or "no" to a rattles question, you would be excluded from answering which plant code. People could list plant codes and the month/year in a reply but with the potential of hundreds of replies, it would get unmanageable to tally very quickly.

What would be nice is to be able to have "sections" within polls which would allow a responder multiple answers to be collated. Each section would then have one allowable answer such as "rattles yes or no", "which plant", "which month", "which year", "where was your rattle" etc. Then we could look at the polling tallies and get a feel for the data trend.

 

You're overthinking this. 6 choices. Yes plant code 1, yes 2, yes 5, no 1, no 2, no 5.

 

Only rattle / buzz came from the dash on rough roads and I fixed it but forcing packing under the edge adjacent to the display window. Now its gone.
Pitty Toyota did not find this during the snagging phase pre launch !

 

What is this rattles you guys are talking about?

 

When the ICE is running there is a high pitched rattle almost like a
loose exhaust manifold heat shield noise. It can only be heard
outside the Prius. It does not bother me inside . Do I have a maintenance issue? This is a new 2011 with 700 miles.

 

I don't think that is a normal Prius noise, at least I have never heard mine do that. You could go to the dealer and listen to a couple of other ones and if you don't hear the noise have them look at yours.

If the AC is running it will sometimes make a fairly loud buzzing noise but that doesn't sound like what you described.

 

Mine's been quiet as a mouse up to 3500 miles so far. People only hear the tires on the pavement as I go by even with the ICE running. I like it like that. I wouldn't want some sort of noisemaker added.

 

Let's hope Toyota revamped how the interiors are assembled for 2011 and that plastic parts that can make noises inside are now buffered with felt. When my dealership tore my dash apart, they added felted tape to stop the rattles. It worked.