The Dreaded Shock Rattle

Is that all the dealership does, or is there some part replacement?

 

Yeah, that's why you should allow the dealer to do the work. If something goes disastrously wrong, like your shocks working their way loose while you are on the highway, the first thing they are gonna do is look at who did the work and hand off liability to them.

 

@priusgto

What do you have to do to get to that nut?

 

can that nut also be reached from the inside of the trunk? i know for gen2 it's possible. tks

 

I had this problem on my 2016 four touring. Brought my car into local Toyota dealership - downtown Oakland Toyota Subaru. I explained the problem and showed them the TSB. They wanted to replace the rear struts, on a brand new car! They gave me rental car, and did nothing. Then nothing and nothing and nothing. After 8 days I demanded my car back. I took a wrench to the strut assembly and also the rear hatch. Problem solved, no more rattle. Lame lame Toyota dealer.

 

I hope you had a free ToyotaCare rental for that time.

 

ok tks. i suspect it might be accessible but perhaps the access hole is smaller than the diameter of the black plastic cover and therefore blocking the nut? in the gen2 there is no black plastic cover so the access hole lets you directly reach the nut

 

I may try this repair myself, any idea of the tightening torques for the screws holding the shock tower to the body?

 

@Elektroingenieur should be able to help here.

 

I’m grateful for your confidence, but for something like this, I’m hesitant to give only a torque value, without the rest of the procedure from Toyota’s Repair Manual, which has other important information like the correct tightening order for the two bolts involved—and as much as I’d like to, I can’t reproduce the whole thing here.※

I encourage anyone considering a safety-critical repair like this to consult the Repair Manual, which is available by subscription to techinfo.toyota.com, or perhaps for free from a local public library that sponsors free access to the ChiltonLibrary service for its patrons.

※ Perhaps @Danny could take a license from Toyota for all the Prius repair content and make it a benefit of the coming-soon-for-years paid subscription to PriusChat, but unless that happens, my hands are tied.

 

Thank you. I assumed it was a single value for a single bolt or nut.

 

That's been up there for quite a while now. Perhaps the dream has died already.

 

So, I went ahead and got a 2 day account on techinfo.toyota, was planning to try to download the whole manual but that is clearly not going to happen. I did download the relevant rear suspension info and the TSB. According to the TSB it only applies to very early cars below either VIN JTDKBRFU#G3006967 or VIN JTDKARFU#G3007491. Even though I took delivery my car in April of 2016 the VIN is much higher than the numbers listed. So, I guess I will continue on with hunting the rattle/click. Any ideas?

 

just to update that my rattle is fixed. 3rd party dealer here in singapore wanted me to bring it in for a few hours job. prob would have charged me higher. managed instruct the tyre rotation shop guy how to do it instead for 30bucks n a 30min job since the wheels were already off anyway. as a matter of good procedure he also checked the other side rear nut and said it felt tighter than the one that was giving the rattle. he screwed both back by feeling. no torque setting.

kudos to this forum. one of the factors for choosing this car. thumbs up.

 

Great news, Mark! Glad you got it sorted in the end.