I seem to visit my Scion dealer about every three months to have something replaced or fixed. This has been going on for about three years now. This months problem was the sunroof. It started whistling when you go over 50mph and the whistle was LOUD. The dealer tried cleaning and did the disconnect battery thing and tightened screws but it did not help, The service guy took it on the highway and said "Yep..your right..still whistles". No kidding. They called Scion and Scion told them to replace the whole sunroof. They will replace it next week. I add this to my list of visits to the dealer for: Hatch rattles (several times), brake in reverse squeal, (several times), radio cover not closing, sunroof recall about a year ago, windshield cracking for no reason. I have bought many new cars (for myself and kids) in the last 56 years and I have never had so many problems with these other cars.

 

Windshield may or may not be an issue with the car.. a lot can cause that. Sunroof recall was just a safety issue in the case the glass did break, not a fix to keep anything from happening. Brake squeal is virtually never a problem and is just something that goes with newer composition brake pads. I have seen that on bmw, mercedes (LOTS of mercedes) etc.

For your wind whistle, I would be willing to bet that it has nothing to do with the sunroof. I had a wind whistle on mine once and took it in since it was under warranty. The tech taped off things one by one and drove it. Keep in mind the whistle sounded to all of us like it came from the front of the sunroof.. but that type of noise is hard to pinpoint. It was the front hood seal. When he untaped it, the whistle came back. Due to the type of sound, it just happens that it seemed to come from the area above the windshield. It has come back once or twice for a while, but not long enough to pinpoint it. I have the feeling it is not actually just the front hood seal, but the air rushing under the hood and the way it flows... potentially when it hits the rear of the hood area. But, it is barely noticeable and only occurs every now and then, so not a priority for me right now. When it comes back, I will tape off things and find it.

some of the earlier ones did have hatch rattles and is the only real issue I know that they could not fix all the time (some were due to bad welds around the rear glass). My 05, however, has none of those issues.

For the radio cover, I could probably fix that if I had the console bezel in my hand, god knows I have had enough of those apart doing led swaps One guy sent one poorly packed (dont have to send that whole part, but some do) and it was all out of whack when I got it... so I ahve completely dis-assembled that mechanism and put it back together before. But if you are under warranty, they should be able to just get you a new one. It takes all of 5-10 minutes to replace it.

Good luck with it, if you find out what the wind noise is post it up (I can put it on scionwiki.com as well) so anyone else with it can know the fix.

 

lol i have the infamous hatch rattle and the whistle..I just ignore those, thats what the radios for.. : )

 

engifineer: Thanks for the tip about the hood being a possible cause of wind whistle. I'll try it. Scion offered to pay $500 of the $1500 cost of replacing the sunroof. Their paultry offer ticks me off even more than their poor workmanship / design. The car is barely 2.5 yrs old. I expected better from Toyota.

 

I had my sunroof replaced about three days ago. No cost..I took my car on the turnpike and took it to 85 mph. The whistle is finally gone.... I am happy I got the extended warranty...at this rate, it looks like I will be replacing things on a monthly basis for the next 4 years. What a lemon!!!!

 

I didn't buy the extended warranty thinking that cars built by a Toyoto offspring would be high quality like the parent co. oh well.