2023 Toyota Highlander
This year drew an ordinary 172 complaints for a Toyota Highlander — the model's median is 258. What they were about is the unusual part: 8.1% of them mention wrong, against 2% across the other years of this generation.
Generation 4 of the Toyota Highlander, which began in 2020. Everything below compares this year against the others in that generation, not against a different car wearing the same name.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 172 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 258 |
| Involving a crash | 12 |
| Recalls | 9 |
| NHTSA crash rating | 5/5 |
| EPA combined | 24 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- wrong — 8.1% of this year's complaints, against 2% across the other years of this generation (4.1×). Owners wrote it as: wrong, yes, anything wrong, find anything.
- panel — 7.6% of this year's complaints, against 2% across the other years of this generation (3.7×). Owners wrote it as: panel, critical.
- delay — 7.6% of this year's complaints, against 3% across the other years of this generation (2.6×). Owners wrote it as: delay, near, take off, miss.
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
The fact that the dealership was able to sell this car with a recall on is crazy, yes I have blame for not looking as well but now we are having issues with the front bumper hitting the tires when you turn and making a grinding noise. We were told that there’s…
The transmission developed hesitations at take off, a whine at low speeds and over time got louder. Diagnosis by the dealer confirmed yet another bad eight speed transmission failure. This vehicle has 41K miles.
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 23V480000 STEERING Fixed free of charge.
- 23V720000 STRUCTURE Fixed free of charge.
- 24V419000 TIRES Fixed free of charge.
- 24V452000 TIRES Fixed free of charge.
- 24V548000 EQUIPMENT Fixed free of charge.
- 25V040000 STEERING Fixed free of charge.
- 25V595000 ELECTRICAL SYSTEM Fixed free of charge.
- 25V744000 BACK OVER PREVENTION Fixed free of charge.
Showing 8 of 9. The rest are on NHTSA's site.
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 2023 Toyota Highlander? What happened to yours?
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