What's THat Sound

OK, to start I have been with my Prius for 1 month and 3 days now. I have absolutely loved everything about it, that is until the dash noise came. About a week ago I started getting a weird almost scratching sound from inside the passenger side of the dash. It doesn't present itself until around 17mph. From then on it is absolute horror. If you have ever heard a mouse chewing through wood that is what I imagine the sound to be. It is driving me insane. Now comes the long ranting, the real point is the last paragraph if you want to skip ahead.

On Tuesday I took the car back to the dealership which is about 50 miles away (approx 1 gal of gas!). They took the car and gave me a Camry (gas hog...lol) to drive back home. The service guy calls on Wed and tells me to come pick up my Prius. I asked if they fixed the noise. He of course tells me that they couldn't hear anything. I was obviously upset. I asked him to have someone there that could go for a ride with me. He said that he would stay until I arrived. After arriving we went for a ride. The Service Manager suggest a road for me to travel on as we entered traffic. As soon as he said that we reached the magic MPH of 17 and the noise started. I told him that there was no need that the noise had already started. He looked at me like I was crazy. After pointing to the general area where the sound is coming from he put his head over the dash. He says that he hears the sound. At last there is a feeling of vindication. After arriving back at the dealership, he tells me to take the Prius back home and he would call Thursday with a time to bring the car back in.

(Enter Thursday) Right after lunch the service manager dude calls back. He says that his mechanic will not work on the car. This stunned me :guns: . He said that since the mechanic could not hear the sound, that he was not going to work on it. He was afraid that he might cause some other problem. :cussing: The thing that really bothers me is that the service manage dude was in the car and told me that he could hear the noise! So they tell me that a Toyota Rep might be interested in the problem and that he would be there next week! Holy cow! I can't wait that long. The noise is like finger nails on a chalk board to me, and I am basically told to live with it, oh well! I hope that this is not Toyota's view with customer relations. Are there any Toyota reps reading this post?Maybe some of you have had better resolve with your issues?

So the question that I have is, has anyone had an irritating, constant noise coming from the airbag portion of the passenger side of the dash? If so what might have been done to fix the problem?

 

Honestly I removed all the documents from the glovebox before calling the dealership. I am sure that there are no other suprises in the dash. I have only had the car for a little over a month and I am the only person person that drives it. I am really concerned that there might be something with the airbag. The service manger agreed with me during the test ride. Thanks for the advice for dealing with the tech. I will try that advice at the new dealership that will be looking at the car on Monday. I hope to have a better experience there.