2019 Toyota Highlander
This year drew an ordinary 471 complaints for a Toyota Highlander — the model's median is 238. What they were about is the unusual part: 39.9% of them mention transmission, against 5.3% across the other years of this generation.
Last year of its generation. This Toyota Highlander ran from 2014 to 2019, so it had the whole run for its faults to be found and fixed. Last years are usually the most sorted of a generation.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 471 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 238 |
| Involving a crash | 22 |
| Involving a fire | 1 |
| Recalls | 3 |
| NHTSA crash rating | 5/5 |
| EPA combined | 22.5 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- transmission — 39.9% of this year's complaints, against 5.3% across the other years of this generation (7.6×).
- whining — 29.9% of this year's complaints, against 5.8% across the other years of this generation (5.1×). Owners wrote it as: whining, shifting, whining sound, internal.
- noise — 26.3% of this year's complaints, against 9.8% across the other years of this generation (2.7×). Owners wrote it as: noise, whining noise, hearing, sos.
Words owners used for the same problem are counted together, so a fault written four different ways is measured once. Grouped by which complaints they appear in, not by a list anyone wrote in advance.
What owners wrote
Owners of 2017–2022 Toyota Highlanders, 2017–2020 Siennas, and 2018–2020 Camrys are experiencing serious transmission issues—including high-pitched whining, erratic shifting, clunks, hesitation, and premature failure. These vehicles are equipped with the UA80F…
My car does have a similar transmission as the one that was recall in Siannas, and Camrys. I have experience the same serious transmission issues—including high-pitched whining, erratic shifting, clunks, hesitation, and premature failure. These vehicles are eq…
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 20V682000 FUEL SYSTEM, GASOLINE Fixed free of charge.
- 20V012000 FUEL SYSTEM, GASOLINE Fixed free of charge.
- 19V244000 EQUIPMENT Fixed free of charge.
How this was worked out
Every year of the Toyota Highlander was compared against its own history rather than against other cars, which removes popularity and age from the answer — a common car draws more complaints at equal reliability, and an older one has had longer to accumulate them. A year is flagged when it drew at least 2.5× this model's median and at least 50 complaints.
This is a fault record, not a review. Nobody files a federal complaint to say the car was fine, so it shows what tends to go wrong — not whether owners liked it, and not whether it is a good car.
Source: NHTSA complaints, recalls and investigations, retrieved . Look this vehicle up directly on NHTSA's site to check anything here.
Own a 2019 Toyota Highlander? What happened to yours?
Loading comments…