Gen 3 Dashboard rattles & creaks

Your post is exactly like my post a few weeks ago. Same frustration with rattles in the dash and console. This line really got me "How can a car with a price tag in the low end of luxury cars feel so much cheap inside?" that is the buyers remorse part for me. My car was quiet in the Summer then at 4k started to rattle. After looking at the plastics and construction of the interior I realized this car was made as cheaply as possible in order to be lightweight. Just tap on the glove compartment door and feel the thin plastic ping.

I would not recommend this car to anyone I liked. It's technologically advanced but cheaply manufactured. The old saying still holds true "You get what you pay for." I paid around 25k for my III model and feel the integrity of the interior is like a cheap rental car worth 15k. Sure, lots of people on this post say their cars are rattle free...just wait, they'll come. It's an engineering issue and construction problem! Toyota should address this issue.

 

Ah, so because you have buyers remorse you justify being rude to people on this forum? Makes sense now. A word of advice, stop focusing on the negatives of the car, or anything in life, it can really make for a miserable life and attitude.

 

Sorry, but what is rude about being frustrated with the rattles and creaks and not recommending the car to others?

The Prius has great technology and is right now the most FE car in this country. The HSD is neat, the cargo room for its class is great, the interior accessories are good, and it is fun to drive, which is my favorite part.

But I agree 100% with springfield. It is cheaply manufactured, likely to keep its weight light but, perhaps, to offset some of the high cost of the battery and HSD components. Everything seems to be so fragile and toy-like inside the car.

Do you know what the latest joke around here is? Hey, did you ask Toyota to remove that rattle snake from inside your dashboard? Very funny…

You know, I will be driving 40K miles per year in this car for the next 3-4 years, so can you picture the savings? I must be strong and overcome the rattling but honestly, this is the first time I have been bothered with rattle noises inside a car since I start driving and I have driven all sorts of junk in my life.

If my commute was short, yes, buyers regret would be hitting me very strong right now as much as I enjoy driving it…

 

Mine has only 3,000 miles on it and I experience the same noises from the dash or bridge - I think I've located them - try pressing on the material around the gear shift when the noises begin - there must be something lose there. This tends to stop mine. So far my dealer hasn't been able to locate it because the rattle usually quits by the time I arrive. When the car is cold, it seems the worst. We are going to leave the car overnight and let them try to drive it cold. I'll let you know what they find out.

 

I understand it's always nice to look at the bright side but if we don't spend a little time focusing on the negatives of the car we won't get anything fixed. It's simply not going to work to take it to your friendly dealer and say "fix the rattles" because they are not going to do it.

This is a very big problem for Toyota, it means their quality control program is not working as well as it did for previous models. Nothing will convince me to buy from a different company quicker than lack of quality control, and I suspect a lot of others feel the same.

The Toyota organization as well as their loyal customers should be grateful that forums such as this are willing to discuss problems, they should "read and heed." General Motors was on top of the world at one time also, but they quit listening to their customers and now they are a ward of the state supported by taxpayers.

 

I have rattles in my center console but can't seem to find the cause, BUT, I think I have found the source of the somewhat common passenger side rattle.

When I heard the rattling on my commute this morning I opened the lower glove compartment and it stopped completely (empty glovebox btw). So I think it is a plastic part that vibrates when the glove box is closed.

I hope others with htis rattle try this to see if it helps. If so we can tell the dealer a specific area to inspect at least.

 

Boy am I glad the Demonstrator I drove 2 days after launch rattled like an old tea trolley as it made me put my cheque book away immediately. The thought of me swapping my totally solid car for one that could start rattling & creaking just doesn't bear thinking about.

I really hope Toyota get things sorted out for you guys who are suffering.

 

I've got 6K and still nothing (I keep turning down the stereo to listen ). I know my Jeep eventually had rattles in it, but it had 300K+ miles so I wasn't surprised or upset.

Could this be different manufacturing locations/times? It seems when I started reading this fourm that there was some way to decipher that, but I can't find it now. It would be interesting to see if those with lots of rattles and creaks have anything in common...

Now if I could just figure out the display buzz!

Robbin

 

If I remember right, it was determined most if not all units were built in the same plant. I think it is just environmental conditions (humidity, temp). Just a guess though. All my rattles go away after the cab is warmed up.

 

Indy, I've valued your honest and accurate posts, so I'm sorry to hear about your rattles.

With your friends in the car, are you at all able to identify the source of the worst rattle? With sounds bouncing around in a car, one person alone usually can't.

I found mine by noticing that when my wife is in the car, the rattle didn't happen. She puts her arm on the padded, sliding top of the center console/storage compartment. I tried that when driving alone and the rattle stopped. It had sounded like it was coming from the dash to me.

My solution, posted earlier in this thread: "I put a piece of paper towel on each side covering where the little tray lands and where the latch arms fall, then closed and slid the cover to the closed position (if that makes sense). That fixed it."

Since then, I slid the paper towel so that it is just covering where the tray lands, not where the latch falls, and it is still quiet.

You may have more than one rattle, but if you could isolate the worst one maybe we as a group could trouble shoot it and all benefit.

 

I imagine most of you have already thought of this but I'll pass it along for those who haven't. I use felt stuck in and around the plastic pieces and sometimes need some that will stick down by itself, such as for the center console lid, glove box doors etc.

The sewing department of large stores (such as Wal Mart) has 8 x 11 inch pieces of sticky back felt that comes in different colors. I am using black because they didn't have dark gray. It's easy to cut pieces the right shape and size with scissors.

 

I have just spent three days tracing down a rattle on the passenger side dashboard of my 2010 Prius. As a result I have found that the noise is coming from the loose hinges of the lower glove box. By spraying Armor-All into the hinges I have been able to reduce the rattling down to a tolerable level. I believe a more viscous lubricant injected into the loose hinges would prevent the rattle altogether. I hope this helps many of you.

 

My car seems to have two rattles .... the center armrest one (only happens when closed) and another one, that only happens sometimes but when it's going on it seems every little bump sets it off.

But today I went out for a spirited drive on Mulholland with the car -- pushed it hard and fast and the road is quite bumpy in spots... so I expected it to bring out all the rattles to full symphony. I didn't. In fact, the car was solid and rattle free -- even while cornering over pretty bad bumps.... So who knows.

Part of the problem, I think, is the car is so quiet. With the windows up, A/C off and radio off and at electric only speed, it's so quiet you hear everything.

The arm rest thing is annoying -- and I've noticed a slight wear spot where the plastic is rubbing. I'm going to first put a little grease on the spot to see if that helps -- or perhaps the little teflon pads from the bottom of a mouse? Super slippery....

 

Hi Royrose, thanks for the post. Now that you said it, I'm thinking, my friends joke mainly about the noises in the dashboard because I usually complain about those, so they are obvious targets, but what seems to really catch their attention is a rattle that comes form the back door, which I don't hear every time when I'm riding alone. It comes and goes for some reason. I do think my Prius rattles more than average, but I don’t know what to do about it? I thought about asking the dealer to check the manufacturing records for the lot where my car came from to see if anything wrong was recorded, but I doubt they would do something like that… I don’t know…

 

With all the suggestions of DIY rattle fixes and maybe this thread should be renamed "Rattle Battle" or "Creak of the Week"?

 

I posted an earlier comment on this thread but I think we all benefit from getting that adhesive felt pads or small plastic bumpers...similar to what you put on your cupboard door corners, and those I find in the clear at Home Depot. Those I have put on the glove box door corners and that has solved any real rattle problems in that location.

I find that the cupholder in the center armrest forward of the actual console area to have the same issue. When the cover is closed it will creak, so I used the bumpers there as well, and that has almost stopped that.

As for the rear creak sounds It's almost always the toneau cover. So how I determined that was to remove it from the car and drive a couple days and it obvilusly was the cause. Now I keep it retracted unless I have something to cover and use my tote divider I bought from Toyota to brace up against the retracted cover. And it has helped to stop it. Also you may want to check to see that your "compartments" under the rear deck are in the locked position and secure.

Other than that, there is nothing that is to annoying to me anymore.

For those who have not tried these described tricks, give them a try and see if they help. It's pretty darn quiet now.

 

Yup a new rattle here...my oval 'console' where all the speed/consumption info is...is producing an annoying ticking everytime i hit the smallest bump. Anyone a fix for this ?? Also when i press that area it all creaks like hell...pffff....

 

Yup, that is where mine come from... but only when cold. When the heat comes, they go away. Is that true for you also?

 

Spiderman,
today they dissappeared but it was not much colder then yesterday.
I also have a tick/creak somewhere around the frontright speaker nearby the triangular window...Anyone has the same problem ?... I can't locate it exactly...grrrr