2011 Toyota Highlander
This year drew an ordinary 370 complaints for a Toyota Highlander — the model's median is 238. What they were about is the unusual part: 25.9% of them mention down, against 9.2% across the other years of this generation.
Generation 2 of the Toyota Highlander, which began in 2008 and ran to 2013. 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 | 370 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 238 |
| Involving a crash | 28 |
| Recalls | 5 |
| NHTSA crash rating | 4/5 |
| EPA combined | 20 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- down — 25.9% of this year's complaints, against 9.2% across the other years of this generation (2.8×).
- broke — 6.5% of this year's complaints, against 1.3% across the other years of this generation (5.1×).
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
AS I ATTEMPTED TO LOWER THE VISOR ON THE DRIVERS SIDE, THE MECHANISM BROKE AND IT WOULD NEITHER STAY OR OR DOWN - BLOCKING VISIBILITY. I KNOW A COUPLE OF MY FRIENDS WHO OWN HIGHLANDERS HAVE HAD THE SAME PROBLEM AND THE DEALERSHIP I WENT TO SAID THAT TOYOTA WAS…
I HIT A CONCRETE POST AT ROUGHLY 30 MPH, DEAD CENTER FRONT OF VEHICLE. THE CAR WAS TOTALLED, AND NONE OF THE AIRBAGS DEPLOYED. I BROKE MY NECK DUE TO THE SEATBELT HOLDING MY CHEST AND TORSO BACK ON THE SEAT, WHILE MY HEAD MOVED FORWARD, ALL THE WAY DOWN AND HI…
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 16V396000 SEATS Fixed free of charge.
- 14V743000 SEATS Fixed free of charge.
- 15V689000 VISIBILITY Fixed free of charge.
- 13V014000 AIR BAGS
- 13V123000 EQUIPMENT
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 2011 Toyota Highlander? What happened to yours?
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