2021 Toyota Highlander
This year drew an ordinary 488 complaints for a Toyota Highlander — the model's median is 238. What they were about is the unusual part: 30.3% of them mention noise, against 11.8% 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 | 488 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 238 |
| Involving a crash | 16 |
| Involving a fire | 3 |
| Recalls | 4 |
| NHTSA crash rating | 5/5 |
| EPA combined | 23 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- noise — 30.3% of this year's complaints, against 11.8% across the other years of this generation (2.6×). Owners wrote it as: noise, whining noise, t-sb-0008-21, started making.
- new transmission — 8.2% of this year's complaints, against 1.7% across the other years of this generation (4.7×).
- issued — 8.8% of this year's complaints, against 3.5% across the other years of this generation (2.5×). Owners wrote it as: issued, february, february 2021, toyota issued.
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
Regarding Toyota TSB T-SB-0008-21, ‘Whine or Grind Noise From the Transmission’, issued February 2021: Some 2021 model year Avalon, Highlander, and Camry vehicles equipped with UA80E or UA80F transmissions may exhibit a whine or grind noise from the transmissi…
My 2021 Toyota Highlander equipped with the UA80 transmission developed a whining/grinding noise under acceleration around 73,000 miles. Toyota diagnosed internal transmission failure and recommended full replacement costing approximately $9,000. Toyota issued…
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 23V720000 STRUCTURE Fixed free of charge.
- 23V865000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
- 24V452000 TIRES Fixed free of charge.
- 26V128000 SEATS 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 2021 Toyota Highlander? What happened to yours?
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