Metallic Rattling Noise from inside Passenger Seat

Can you repro the basic noise with the car sitting still and
moving bits of the seat, like shaking the seatback in various
axes? Then you can get your head down in there and try to
localize it. With the various brackets and springs and bits
comprising its frame, it could be nearly anything.
.
I was gonna say "clean the beer bottles out from under there"..
.
_H*

 

If the noise only happens when the seat is not occupied, the likely culprit is the seat belt buckle is twisted and hitting on the pillar or the seat. Check to make sure the seat belt on the pillar is not twisted.

 

I am surprised you don't have other rattles yet. Especially you are spending so much time in the car.

The seat belt holder rattles. The Bottom of the seat belt also makes sound because of metal to metal contact.

The seat belt holder rattle is not a constant though mind you. It comes on and off.

As for seats I havn't had any rattles from the seat yet. But if it does I am glad I am getting rid of my car in about a weeks time.

 

Could this be related to TSB T-SB-0288-08 with the seat guide pins and floor pan location holes? If they can cause a squeak, I suppose they might also cause a rattle. The cure was to cut the guide pins off as they are only used in assembly.

 

I removed my passenger seat thinking I could have the rattle addressed by the TSB. It's pretty easy to get out and I tied down the wires and cables under the seat bottom and put some support under the black box (inertia sensor I think) on the floor under the seat. So it wasn't a complete waste of time.

But as to the guide pins, I found that they had inserted little soft plastic sleeves over them that just fit the holes, so no rattles from them.

 

I have had this happen, exactly, to a 'T', what GrumpyCabbie describes. It definitely is not the seat belt. (It is the RH passenger seat, front). I can occasionally get it to go away by moving the seat up and back on the rails. It is very intermittent, and yes, it is annoying. I can imagine it would be quite hard to diagnose, unless you could convince a Toyota tech to drive around endlessly while s/he sits in the back seat waitinng for you to say "See? There it is!" Good luck on that. I'd love to hear a solution (pun intended).
~T

 

I have this exact same problem as well here in the U.S. Over a year ago my driver's seat started making the noise you described GrumpyCabbie. After going back and forth to the service department, they eventually fixed it by replacing the seat assembly. Now my passenger seat is doing this and only when the seat is vacant. When it is happening I can make the noise temporarily stop by applying slight pressure to the seat-back. The weird thing is if I slide the seat forward or back on the seat track, the noise is gone for some time. It rears its ugly head pretty quickly if I drive the car on the freeway. I had an appointment this morning with the service department, but last night my girlfriend adjusted the seat so this morning of course it didn't make any noise. I just don't understand how the noise temporarily goes away after sliding the seat forward or back. I am extremely disappointed with my Prius as I went through a big headache just to get the service department to even hear the noise back when I had a problem with the driver's seat. Now I have to go through the whole thing all over again with the passenger seat. I am 39 and I've owned / leased many vehicles over the years and I've never had any issues like this in the past. I can't believe a car with only 15k miles has already had one seat assembly replaced and now needs to have the other one replaced as well! What a joke!

 

Folks, the noise is coming from the adjustment handle for moving the seat forward & back. The handle vibrates from road vibrations. When you hear the noise from the passenger seat while driving, reach over & down and just touch the handle - the noise should stop.

You can create the noise at a standstill by lightly taping on the handle with your fingers.

My fix so far has been to wrap electrical tape between the two handle sides parallel to the front of the handle. This changes it's resonant characteristics enough to stop nearly all of the noise on a variety of road surfaces. The tape is far enough back that it doesn't interfere with using the handle for seat adjustment.

 

It does seem to be the seat adjustment handle. Did you apply the electrical tape from the left side to the right side of the handle or vice versa? I would definitely like to try this fix. I initially reported to the service rep that I believe the noise is coming from the handle but he said there was no way to tighten or adjust it.

mhajii210

 

Yes, I wrapped the electrical tape somewhat tightly from left to right a few turns. This changes the handle's resonant characteristics just enough. The tape isn't visible unless one looks under the seat.

 

I generally just turn my hearing aids off, fixes most rattles.

 

Your right, just took my hearing aids out(40 years of racing) and ALL the rattles go away, must be the hearing aids?

 

I'm having this same sound in my passenger front seat on 2013 pruis c. I've taken it to the toyota dealer 7 times already and they have dobe so many different things to stop the noise With no luck. Their next step is to replace the whole seat. Has anyone had this problem fixed for good?