Interior Integrity / Rattles

First time I've seen this complaint about a Prius. Some people report one or two things that rattle but not so many as you have. I had a few squeaks from the grab bars above the doors, fixed with silicone spray. I also have a little rattle somewhere in the dash but it's not to bad and I haven't bothered with it yet.

I bought a new Honda Accord some years back. Almost everything inside the car rattled. The Honda dealer (Schumate Honda in Kennewick, Washington) simply wouldn't help. I took it in with a list of about 10 of the worst rattles and they worked on the first thing on the list, didn't get it fixed, and wouldn't even look at the other stuff.

Anyway to make a long story short I ended up fixing a lot of the rattles myself. I bought some felt, the same colors as the interior, and used a small screwdriver to poke it in between things. Also sprayed stuff with silicone spray lubricant. Finally got quite a few of them fixed and learned to ignore the others. If you have access to a good dealer they should be able to fix some of them for you, if not you may have to try what I did.

EDIT: BTW the rattles in the Honda were not an indication of other problems to come. The car ran perfectly for the 7 years I owned it and is still doing just fine as far as I know, I still see it around town.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Kalmairn @ Aug 17 2006, 05:18 AM) [snapback]304601[/snapback]</div>

I have the same rattles you mentioned above. One from the front doors, and two destinctive rattles from the center console, one sounds like it's coming from the rearview mirror as you mentioned. One goes away when I press on the dash where the monitor frame meets the dash. There is also a squeak when I push on the top of the door frame plastic, near where it meets the side window. My 7 year old Jetta had fewer rattles. I dont think our experiences are rare either, contrary to what another poster mentioned. http://www.priusblog.com/
I know I have to take it to the dealership but it's such a pain and they are NEVER able to find the rattles and they always claim that they couldnt hear the rattles while they drove it.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Kalmairn @ Aug 17 2006, 06:18 AM) [snapback]304601[/snapback]</div>

The front rattles are the switch harnesses. I've maxed out the audio system... i've taken it apart.. and those pieces still rattle. the rear is normally where the tweeter is. It's as if they layed the plastic into the door. and didn't glue it all. * since everything on this car clips together *

I've found others too... but if the music is off, they tend to go away.

too bad i like loud music.

oh yeah.. i forgot about the rear view mirror. Mine did rattle.. but i messed with it. I got tired of squeezing it * a temp fix that worked for quite a while sometimes*

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(V8Cobrakid @ Aug 18 2006, 08:15 PM) [snapback]305721[/snapback]</div>

Is it hard to get to the harnesses? I have the same rattle on the passenger's side when the bass is too high.

 

it's easy. just grab the side hanrest. it pulls up from the front.. the whole thing will unclip. I also found a couple other in the door. the weather barriar... it rattles where the center door hole is. but there's a plate there that toyota put.. it rattles against it.

the clip is the window controls. it's a tricky little guy. i would say put a drop of hot glue. you can peel it off and not possibly perminantly bond important and yet fragile parts.

 

I'm really pleased with what sound deadening did for my car. I didn't have so many rattles, but the audio is better. You can read about it in this thread. I also put Ensolite behind the plastic door panels.

 

When I opened the passenger side armrest, I saw a black box. I wrapped two pieces of paper towel around it, and the rattle went away.

 

My '06 with 13k miles sounds like a bag of spanners (wrenches). The worst is a really annoying light rattle that sounded like it was coming from the heater vent on the passenger side. It happens when the stereo is off and even when rolling really slowly, pulling to a stop. I dismantled and cleaned all the heater vents but nothing. I now think it's coming from the passenger footwell, on the underneath of the glovebox. A quick prod down there reveals a whole lot of loose floppy plastic bits.

When I hit a bump though, the car rattles like an old piece of crap, which really annoys me. My 1992 Passat that cost me 250 pounds had fewer rattles....

 

Oh goodness...now I'm worrying (again). I'm totally rattle-phobic and so far Buzz seems to be fairly well put together...

I'm taking all of this in, with the hopes that I won't have to put too much of it to use.

 

Rattles here too - "bag of spanners" pretty much sums it up. Also an '06, package 8 but with 16K miles. Worse in cold weather and probably exacerbated by the stiff suspension. I play the stereo loudly so I don't hear them ... much. Very disappointing - actually worse than my '02 Mini was which is surprising. Yes, I could spend many hours trying to resolve them myself or taking it to the dealer (which invariably causes more rattles in my experience) but life is too short to spend it sitting in the waiting room of a dealership maintenance department - takes much less time to vent here and move on.

Ahhhh ... feeling better already.

 

Update on the rattles:

So I started by taking the glovebox out - squeeze the sides to open it further than normal, then disconnect the damper on the side.. then the rest of the glovebox area trim just pops out of its sockets. This means that you can dismantle the whole area really easily and access any rattles.

The big one that was annoying me was actually the SIDE of the dashboard - the bit that fits into the door, and you never see when the doors are shut; the inside of this was touching the end of the metal bar that supports the dashboard. So I put sticky foam between the two, and on anything else I found, tapping things to see what sound they made, and it seems to have cleared most of the noise in one fell swoop!

Toyota have insulated and padded most stuff it seems behind the dash, seems like they forgot to do that side panel on my car tho.

The noise when going over bumps I think is mainly caused by the panel that covers the secret compartment in the boot. It's quite a loose fit in my car; I think I'll get some kind of padding in there next. Also, the stuff I was keeping in the compartment was rattling around too, so don't forget to wrap stuff in a tarp or something

 

Umm, quite possibly, don't recall without looking. The lid doesn't sit down well on the box though; it's like there's play in the catch that holds it shut, so you can press it down a few mm and it'll spring back. This causes noise when you're prodding and banging the interior looking for rattles, but apparently not whilst driving. I did think there were rattles coming from the centre console area though - I dismantled it and greased all the moving parts like cupholders, the drawer etc.

It's weird the number of small things that are different in different editions of the car. There's no tray in my upper glovebox, for instance. This makes no sense to me!

 

I too have been complaining about rattles every now and then on PC.

I actually still have massive window rattles when they are lowered about 1-4". They keep on banging against the door frames.... I've tried silicone spray but it didn't work.

I've even applied dynamat xtreme mats to all 4 speakers, but it didn't help the window rattle. Instead, they minimized (but not eliminated) door rattles. Oh, the bass sounds great now too!

I actually feel embarrassed when people get in my car and i have to tell them NOT to lower the windows. What kind of Toyota is this? I'm thinking of applying Dynamat entirely across all doors.

Thankfully I don't have any dash rattles yet, but my car does squeak on speed bumps.

 

Mine is beginning to loosen up a bit. Just noticed a rattle coming from the way back, in the hatch area.

Could be because of the stiffer TRD suspension and tires at 42/40, though.

Facing the negative consequences of our decisions isn't usually a pleasant task. So far, the positives have far outweighed them, however...hoping it stays that way!

My '96 RAV-4 seems MUCH more solidly built than Buzz. But I don't know how much more it weighs, either.

 

Recently I've been also hearing a low pitch rattle that seems to be radiating from the passenger door area. The culprit was the seatbelt on the passenger side. Rattling happens when the end gets wedged sideways between the seat and the plastic center post column.

 

My 06 rattles a lot more than my '05 did, and my '05 had 39k miles on it, and was treated very hard by me over the year and a half- lot's of dirt rd.s and bumping into things lol

It is just so embarrssing taking people around in a brand new car and hearing rattle rattle rattle... especially when it's people that don't enjoy music, and you have it turned down or off, and are serenaded by the rattles and creaks!