Model years Toyota Highlander Hybrid

2015 Toyota Highlander Hybrid

Complaints about this year name safety far more often than the model's other years — 19% of them, about 47× the usual rate of 0.4%.

NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.

Complaints filed182
Median for this model9
Involving a crash17
Involving a fire6
Recalls0
NHTSA crash rating5/5
EPA combined28 mpg

What the complaints were about

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.

Also unusual this year

What owners wrote

DOOR LOCK ACTUATOR HAS BEEN REPLACED 3 TIMES WITHIN 12 MONTHS ON THE VEHICLE, TWICE ON THE SAME DOOR. THE INTERNET HAS MANY COMPLAINTS ABOUT THIS DEFECT. THE FAILURE RATE IS FAR TOO HIGH FOR THIS ACTUATOR. THIS IS A SAFETY ISSUE BECAUSE, DUE TO THE DESIGN OF T…
REAR BRAKE LIGHT SEALS FAILING ALLOWING WATER INTO LEFT AND RIGHT BRAKE LIGHT HOUSINGS. WHEN I ASKED DEALER ABOUT [VIN] THEY SAID THAT THEY ARE NOT COVERED UNDER SAFETY WARRANTY.

Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.

Own a 2015 Toyota Highlander Hybrid? What happened to yours?

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How this was worked out

Every year of the Toyota Highlander Hybrid 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.

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