I'm close to 7000km on my TCH and am having almost all of these squeak problems too. My squeaks include:
1) The gear shifter plate (seems to be common on internet forums)
2) Front windshield... both left and right side, seems to be where dash meets the windshield. I think there is a TSB for this?
3) Rear deck when there is any moderate bass. Maybe the brake light vibrating against the back windshield glass?
4) In cold weather both the driver's side seat squeaks (from leaning or moving in the seat) and the armrest between the two front seats squeaks too when going over bumps. These problems go away when the car warms up -- but I didn't put up with that in any of my older, less expensive cars, so even if it only happens in the cold, it shouldn't be happening at all!

I took my car in for service this week because the left/right turns signals stopped working (the bulbs in the back work fine because the 4-way emergency flashers work). When I would push the turn switch up or down the lights would not blink outside the car, nor would they flash in the instrument panel. All other functions of the turn signal lever (e.g. high beams) continued to work fine. I brought up all of these squeak problems while I was there too, so I hope they get fixed too!

I love my TCH overall, aside from these issues. At this point I don't (yet) regret purchasing it, but am definitely disappointed in the build quality. Toyota is known for its reliability, so I was expecting less problems with the TCH (my first toyota!). I assumed these 'common' squeaks would come up when testing the car before its release.

 

This will solve our question. https://www.greenhybrid.com/discuss/...848#post104848

 

I don't think so. I contend that the "Vast Majority" of TCH owners don't know this message board even exists. I contend that more people join message boards because they have issues than if they don't so the population of a message board like this is squewed to those with problems. People less frequently seek out message boards to tell everybody they DON'T have problems.
There are the exceptions (like me) that hang out on message boards to learn the technology and **** and moan at those the spew unscientific hunches as gospel.
Your survey is NOT aimed at the typical TCH owner by virtue of GH's population. No internet message board is or ever will be a crosssection of any population. If it were that simple JD Powers and Assoc. would have to roll up their carpet.

 

I understand what you are talking about, but this is going to shine some light on the problem. I had an Acura TL with the questionable transmission issues and there was a thread asking who had issues and who did not.
My poll allows people to also say they dont have any and while some people out there might seek out forums to vent their problems, if there is no widespread problem in the first place no one would vote. What if the guy that had his blinkers stop working put up a poll. I bet there would not be many if any people with problems. This poll simple states that these problems do exist and this number of people have them. The poll it not there to determine a ratio.

 

Under those pretenses the poll is fine.
I just don't want to see it extrapolated to apply to the "VAST MAJORITY".

 

schmitdy, your basic critical framework is way off. A poll is by definition a sampling of a small cross-section of the absolute population. One measure of statistical soundness of a poll is if the sample size is big enough, which means you have the minimum number of people necessary to achieve a reflection of the real-life population. See what I mean? So it doesn't matter what the absolute numbers are, if we want to know whether the "VAST MAJORITY" of people have squeaks, all we need to know is if the VAST MAJORITY of a big enough sample have them.

Plus who's going to take you seriously when you use rhetorically bloated phrases like "spew unscientific hunches as gospel"? You sir, are no empiricist.

 

Sorry, but you left out one key word in your statement. And that is that it has to be a RANDOM sample to be statistically valid. And polls on msg boards are far from that.

 

Thanks, you just saved me some typing.