Does your Prius rattle a lot?

To answer your comment about why don't you just sell it then? Because I leased it and will lose money if I "sell" it. Now that I have a lease agreement I'm stuck with the car for a few years unless I want to lose alot of money. So that's why I am upset about this car and it's poor interior construction. Why do I have to settle for a poorly made car? I've owned Hondas and Mazda's and never had regrets about the purchase. ESPECIALLY after 6 months!!!

 

My Prius rattles:
1. At the right dashboard speaker
2. At the speedometer display at the downside
3. At the point where my armrest meets my cupholder (especially with cold weather)
4. At the drivers door when it's cold (sort of high pinched ticking at the doorlock)

All verry dissapointing after driven for more than 15 years in SILENT Toyota's !
Quality Control is something they have forgotten on this model...

Kind regards !

 

on my 3rd Pri, so far so good, no rattles at all in any of them. but probably attribute that to minimal freeway driving. better than average road conditions (benefit of living in the state capital i think) so less punishment suffered.

many here have the issues and a few i notice live in more rural areas so guessing a lot more freeway, back country road driving which frequently is 50+ mph with inconsistent road surface conditions.

it like people who struggle to get 45 mpg while others get 50+ with little or no effort. its simply the driving conditions that cause the huge differences we see here.

iow, no skill needed, i am just lucky

**edit**

hehehe... ok, jus gotta share this. the SPM is getting up there in age, its over 3 years old, 40,000+ miles, etc. but i only drive it to put gas in it, so not much experience in it lately. so i thought i better ask SO about rattles...

some background, she was hit on right side a few months ago and the other guys insurance company put her into a Mazda Forenza for the 4 days it took to get the Pri fixed.

she said that the Pri has no rattles that she could think of but as she puts it

"hard to tell about the Pri because my ears are still ringing from driving the Mazda. that thing sounded like a diesel truck without a muffler"

 

A Prius will rattle one way or another. Hit a bump or on a rough road and going fast enough...etc. Overall, they are still nicely well built small cars in the market. Turn up the radio and enjoy the ride.

 

Sometimes I get a bit of rattle in my dash. If plastic makes, contact, you'll get rattles.

If my driver's window is down a couple inches, it rattles a bit.

There's no bad rattles in my car, so I forgive the little ones.

 

In order to eliminate rattles, must locate the source of the rattles.

I had a Honda CBR600RR motorcycle that ratted/buzzed at about 5k rpms.

I removed the plastic cover underneath which is the real gas tank and in front of it, an ECU. The ECU had a plastic shroud overtop which was contacting the plastic tank cover. I added a small patch of foam on the tank cover, the rattle was eliminated.

That's what it takes.

 

I've only had my Prius III for two weeks so far, and driving over some rough roads and in darn cold weather I've only noticed an occasional thunk from somewhere in the cargo area. Over time I imagine squeeks and rattles will pop up as they have in every car I've owned, but that pretty much goes for everything... including my own body!

 

This is my second Prius.

My previous 2005 Prius was tight as a drum. Never a rattle, squeek or noise...anywhere.

My 2010 Prius rattles all the time.

First off, I have the same "thunk" sound from the cargo area when I go over any significant bump. At first I thought it was my golf clubs and gear, but since winter is here in the Chicago area and I have removed all that, the cargo area is now empty and the "thunk" is even more noticeable. Note that I have the winter cargo mat installed too, but I would think that would help. But it hasn't.

Secondly, and the most irritating, is the constant rattle from the "skybridge" console. If I press on the passenger's side of the skybridge towards me in the area of the cupholder, this seems to alleviate the problem (sometimes). I have placed some gray foam packing material between the two portions of the console (you can see a small gap below the shifter on each side) on the passenger side, but that hasn't seemed to help much.

I KNOW I am OCD...LOL, but these rattles and thunks are really ruining this car for me. I expected much, much more from Toyota in this version, especially having almost 50,000 miles on my previous Prius and had no problems whatsoever.

That and the sharper decrease in MPG's when the weather turned cold has really made me wonder about my purchase. I know the MPG's will decrease due to the increased usage of the ICE to get the car warmed up, but the MPG decrease in this Prius is way greater than in my 2005 Prius.

In a way, I am sorry I didn't just keep my 2005 Prius. I like the newer styling of the 2010 and the interior design, but I am not a happy camper overall.

If I were rating my two Prius', I would give the 2005 a 5 out of 5, while I would give the 2010 a 3 out of 5.

 

The Toyota customer representative in California(?) also told me he had received no complaints of rattling. Here is his direct number if any of you-all wish to contact him: Name: Nader, # 800-331-4331 x73846.

 

My Prius does not rattle.

My Toyota Sienna rattled in the first 1000 miles. Then it went away.

 

Since Sep. 23rd when I got my new Prius 2010 and 5000km (including driving it at 180km/h on the german highway for a few hundred kms), I still don't have a single rattle or noise in the car. Maybe I was too used to the chaos in my previous car, a diesel VW Polo, and I don't notice anything...

 

What a lot of people do not realize is that HATCHBACKS have more rattles and squeaks than regular sedans and coupes.
1. You have a long body with no structural support from the dash to the rear valance panels.
2. The rear glass is part of the hatch which reduces structural integrity.

The only thing that is stiffening the body is the roof itself on the upper part of the car. The roof has no additional support to stiffen the body, far from it, to keep it thin, it is also prone to excessive flexing. Another contributing factor is the fact that Japanese cars uses a softer steel which is not as stiff or strong as European or American cars...

Regular cars have a solid beam behind the rear seats as well as the rear window. Hatchbacks do not have the structure to resist torsional flex whenever you hit a bump or drive on rough roads.

Excessive flexing will cause car parts to loosen and therefore it rattles. The Prius is my third hatchback and all three had serious noise issues. It's a simple and unfortunate nature of the beast...

 

I was driving yesterday with my wife and had my radio off (never off except when my wife is in the car - to give her my undivided attention ). We were slowing for a stop sign so the ICE was off and there was complete silence, except for the wife. As we went over a bump I heard the faintest sound of what may be described as a rattle. If the engine would have been on and if I had the radio on I would never have heard this.

I have to wonder, like someone said in an earlier post, if due to the quietness of the Prius interior with the engine off, if these rattles are just more noticeable than in other cars.

I am sure those that do have the bothersome rattles will let me know that they disagree.

 

I disagree.

My rattles only occur when the car is in motion...not when stopped.

And these occur with or without the ICE on.

 

Today the temps here got over 40, so I drove without any heat or fans on for my standard trip to listen for any noises. Nothing, quiet as could be except for the clicks and whirs from the relays and electrics! Also got about 7 more mpg, but that's besides the point! I have the basic model III, so I wonder if having more stuff like nav, solar roof etc. can add to possible noise sources?

 

You missed his point. He states that he was moving, but without the ICE it was very quiet, so any resulting rattles were easy to hear.

Tom

 

ya know, one thing i just noticed the other day, my SO has a tendency to slam the door much harder than necessary to close the passenger door. the window does rattle a bit which makes me think that there is probably a rattle in summer when the windows are down, but

with the stereo going, i probably jus never paid any attention to it.

 

Mine rattles all the time. It is especially bad on rough roads. I live with it because I believe that I will find them eventually. I like the car a lot.

 

Could it be possible that the LRR tires are making some difference? I have noticed that this car seems to produce a bit rougher of a ride than past vehicles have. I agree with the folks that mentioned support for a hatchback. My past ones also made a "thud" noise when going over rough bumps, etc. I also wonder if an upgrade to struts / shocks / suspension would make a difference. I notice that the car seems to roll/lean quite a bit if taking a curve a little fast, which past vehicles never did for me.

All in all though, I am extremely happy with the car. I've gotten as high as 63 mpg on a trip (60 miles) and even 45 MPG going up the PA mountains past Penn State, 35 degrees, rain/snow mix. You wouldn't come close to that in any other vehicle.

One thing I've noticed about some of the hinges, is that they are very loose. Meaning, you can open / close things with much less effort than in some past cars. This could be part of the cause behind some rattles that people experience. Less resistence could result in this, I would imagine.

 

You have a valid point, I'm not going to sell a good car at a big financial loss because of the rattles. I like the way it drives, much better than my Gen2, it's a good highway car. The handling seems very good for an economy car and the mileage is, well, almost as good as my Gen2.

My rattles get much worse when the temperature falls below 10 or 15 degrees F and I will probably ignore some of those. I do have several areas that rattle above 30 degrees and I will work on those. But I'm not doing anything until the weather warms up because trying to remove interior plastic pieces in cold weather is risky, they break.

My main problem areas are the plastic box between the seats and the pieces around the shifter, the plastic on the inside of the hatch back door, and something that I just can't find over on the passenger side.

What I am dismayed about more than the rattles is the attitude of the Toyota corporation toward their customers. Based on what I read here virtually everyone who has reported rattles to a dealer or to Toyota has been given the same "Oh my, we have never heard of that problem before!" line even though they obviously have. Lying to customers is dishonest and it makes some of us very unhappy.

The dealers, at least the two I have talked to, are not at all interested in trying to find or fix rattles. I could insist but I think it's bad idea to let people work on my car if they don't want to and would rather be working on some other job. I might have more rattles when I get it back than it has now. So I'll have to keep trying to fix them when I have time.