I noticed the same thing a few weeks agi here in ATL the temps dropped to upper teens a few nights and the dash was very squeaky until the temps rose. They need to use more felt padding where major parts meet, they have to know this stuff is going to move.

 

We just passed the 5000 mile mark. We do have the center console squeak, which is slowly getting worse, though it is only audible if you don't play the stereo. I elected to not have the dealer try to fix it, as I can probably do a better job myself using the instructions in this forum. No other issues at all yet. I DO believe that the small noises seem worse because the car is so quiet in other respects. I little more engine noise would obscure the console squeak completely.

Having said all that, though, Toyota has suffered a slip in quality recently, as has been documented in the press, and confirmed by the CEO's own remarks. I have complete confidence that Toyota will address these quality issues fairly quickly. We just happened to have purchased a first-year model that was pushed to market as fast as they dared, all during the current quality slip.

But, slightly lower than normal Toyota quality is still way better than most other manufacturers on a good day.

 

I have 6 months and 11,000 miles on my TCH, so I feel like I've had some time to judge.

There is a slight misalignment of the dash that was there from the beginning--the drivers side piece is not flush with the window area like it is on the pax side. That is the main manufacturing defect.

In terms of squeaks or rattles, the only thing I've experienced is that when the temperature is very low, the center armrest area does seem to rattle. As soon as the interior heats up, this goes away. For me, that's about 5 minutes or so after starting the car.

I've noticed a few isolated sounds coming from the driver's side door, but that's not consistant and only seems to happen when the seat is not occupied. I think it may just be the seat belt occassionally hangs in an odd spot.

The only other thing is that the 'sensor' that goes to my keyless entry module doesn't seem to be working as well--sometimes it doesn't allow me to open the car without unlocking. I will bring that to the dealer's attention at some point.

I have not experienced most of the noises that some have.

I'm coming from a series of GM vehicles that have all had far worse squeak/rattle problems. Still have one of them. In the first six months, I had multiple squeaks and rattles coming from all sorts of places.

 

Must be the ghost in the machine. Given the thousands of parts that go together to make a car, the possible combinations of fit and finish problems would be almost limitless. Here's what I mean: my TCH has a marvelous fit and finish and is almost silent and squeak free. It's the only car I've ever owned that's been perfectly problem free. Contrarily, our Honda Odessey was a nighmare, with electrical gremlins, several squeaks, and countless warantee issues. The TCH is a first year model, the Odessey was not. Seems to me the problems (or lack thereof) seems to be more specific to an individual car rather than model specific since my experience is exactly the opposite of other posters. The most significant conclusion from this is it's imperative to test drive the actual vehicle you will be buying.

 

Hopefully you meant the passenger side door.
I found by adjusting the seatbelt hight adjuster I eliminated the seatbelt rattling against the riser.

 

Interestingly my new Car and Driver had a mainstream sedan comparison in which the new Camry did very poorly - partly because of its poor fit and finish - usually a Toyota strength. The C/D writer shuddered to think what Toyota would be without their quality. Hopefully they aren't making compromises in their strive to be the country's #1 auto maker. Hopefully just an anomoly?

 

I think I'm with most of you here in that I'm a big fan of my TCH (2k miles now), but am not prepared to give Toyota a pass on the pretty obvious interior assembly problems. It'd be one thing if 1 in 100 cars had the rattles and squeaks, but it looks like the great majority do, and while some small number of QC problems are inevitable, you have to expect obvious glitches like this to be caught before the model goes into full production.

Did the inspection team only have one test car and just chalk the rattle up to a fluke? I mean, you have to wonder if someone consciously ignored this stuff--or if a command decision was made to start pumping them out to meet shipping deadlines and just have dealers 'fix it in post,' as they say in Hollywood.

I love the car but when you buy a $30k vehicle, it's fair to expect that you won't have problems with it as you drive off the lot (or, okay, a week after).

 

Now THAT'S a huge leap of faith.
If you base that (undocumented?) statement on comments made on the board I think way less than 1 in 100 owners are represented here. As you will find, once you weed out those on discussion boards that are in for the technical discussions the majority of the rest are those with other issues. So the board attendance is squewed and does NOT represent in any shape or form the true percentages of any issues in the field.

 

I couldn't agree more.

 

What you're saying makes no more statistical sense than what I said (and granted, mine was just an unscientific hunch). But you have no way to support a contention that GreenHybrid's TCH Board readership/postership is somehow skewed in favor of squeaker-owners or those with other maintenance issues. Many seem to begin reading this board before they buy, or right after they buy because they want to get plugged in to the TCH community--not because they have problems.

How many messages have you seen that say "I've had mine for 2,000 miles and no squeaks"? Not many--don't you think there'd be at least a meaningful minority saying their cars were A-ok if indeed only 1/100 had squeak problems? Might not be so quick to quibble when your argument doesn't have much to it either.