This data is from the NHTSA — the US gov't agency tasked with vehicle safety. Complaints are spread across multiple & redundant categories, & are not organized by problem.
So how do you find out what problems are occurring? For this NHTSA complaint data, the only way is to read through the comments below. Any duplicates or errors? It's not us.
Experience "dead zones" in accelerator pedal movement. Experience "no acceleration" with first 1-2 inches of travel from idle position. This is constant and does not vary noticibly with speed. I was driving in an suburban shopping area in York PA with three lanes of travel in each direction. I intended to move from the laft hand lane to the center lane. I indicated my intentions and waited for an opening. I was travelling about 35-40mph. When an opening came along, I steered into the indended lane, but depressing the accelerator to increase my speed, no acceleration occurred. I then panicked and depressed the pedal quicker, and the ensuing acceleration nearly catapaulted me into the semi truck in the center lane ahead of me. I missed the truck by inches. I have had this issue evaluated at Bennett Toyota in Lebanon PA, and the Lancaster Toyota, the dealer who sold me the vehicle in May of 2023, is aware of the issue. Bennett Toyota service department tried to fix the issue by replacing the brake switch. That did not alleviate the problem. I have had several other instances when pulling into traffic when the delayed acceleration caused me issues but no accidents. I believe this issue is related to the selectable "snow" driving function. I think the system is somehow stuck in the "snow" mode at all times. I may have substantiated this today when I experimented with the "snow" function while driving at about 45 mph. When I select the "snow" mode while driving, the accelerator "dead zone" actually gets worse. Bennett Toyota Service response is "it drives like any other Highlander". If that is so - this is truly a huge issue with "drive by wire" tachnology...!!! As a note, at Bennett Toyota I did drive a 2019 Highlander privately owned by the service manager and it did indeed have the dead zone in the acelerator - a fact that the service manager admitted to me verbally. I have read many instances of this issue in chats online.
Vehicle check engine turned on to check AWD system after about 2 days when filling with gas the engine wouldn't start and had Low brake power message on dashboard. Checked code and got P0171 and P0174 which mean engine's air/fuel mixture becomes too lean for the Engine Control Module (ECM) to correct within its normal operating range there are many posts and threads about same issue on highlanders as old as 2017 please look into this issue that could potentially cause a hazard. will take vehicle in for inspection 06/13/23 at Toyota of Naperville
I went out into my garage 3:30 in the morning and heard a motor running very faintly tried tracking down the noise finally located under the car at the rear. It was the fuel pump running. I went in. got my key started the vehicle let it run about a half a minute shut it off. The noise was gone. I-??m worried about this pump running for hours or possibly days then catching the car on fire the garage and the house I know there have been issues. With fuel pumps in these Toyotas, but I haven-??t found this particular problem online. Possibly there may be a problem with the fuel pump relay?
I have had my vehicle for a little over 3 years, with about 35K miles on it. At first, I realized my vehicle jerked a bit, but I dismissed it because it never stopped. However, I did notice that my battery was dying quickly. I was changed once by the dealership because they said the battery was defective. After they changed that battery, the next battery also went bad. While driving with my children and mother, my vehicle began sputtering and a message that said, "Check Engine Reduced engine power" came on along with "Traction Control turned off" and my engine light. My vehicle barely accelerated as I was trying to cross the intersection thankfully I managed to get out of the way of oncoming vehicles. Somehow, the vehicle ran smoothly after I turned it off and turned it back. After that issue, I then experienced an error message in reference to the Start/Stop system along with the check engine light. That issue also cleared when I turned my vehicle on and off. I then experienced another power loss issue, at which time I traveled to my local Toyota dealership but they were unable to help me then due to a battery issue. The issue then cleared itself somehow again; however, the issue came back the next day. I managed to get my vehicle to the side of the roadway at which time the vehicle stalled. I tried starting the vehicle again; however, it would not turn over. After being on the roadside for about 2 to 3 hours, I tried starting my vehicle again, and it drove fine until I reached the dealership. My vehicle was placed on a machine where they received the code for a fuel rail issue along with a misfire. I was then advised that this issue is not covered under warranty. I was also told that the problem would cost me over 4K for the part which does not include labor. I have been doing my research since and I now find that there is a recall on my vehicle.
Temporary Loss off Power: After driving about 100 miles we stopped for a 15 minute break. Afterwards I started the car and to my surprise the engine was running but I had no power. I was able to coast down a slight grade to avoid other vehicles in the parking lot. I stopped the car, put it in Park (P), put it back in Drive (D) and was able to drive as before. We purchased this vehicle in September of 2018. It has slightly over 14K miles. This has happened at least once before.
- Los Alamitos, CA, USA
Search CarComplaints.com for these popular complaint phrases...
When running, after stopping at a stop sign, the car hesitates to go, kind of sputters. When turning the car on, the lights on the dash flicker and now the car won-€™t start. On days prior, you would turn the car key, but the car wouldn-€™t start on the first time. It sounded like it wouldn-€™t turn all the way on, like the battery died. I didn-€™t leave the radio on or anything that would warrant that.My safety was put at risk because I work in healthcare and get off work at midnight so if I broke down or stalled in traffic, this could cause an accident.
On occasion I have been walking around this car while its just parked in my garage and I hear a a humming sound like a electric gas pump. This is 4 hours after it was used last. It is a faint sound coming from the the rear seating area. Just before I started to write this I went out to check it again and its not doing it. This is not a one time event and its concerning since I believe its electric and may be involved with gas in a parked garage. The vehicle is in like new condition and had one minor cosmetic type accident while in its first year of use. Scratches to driver side panels and front bumper. I will call the dealer tomorrow to see what they have to say. Thanks in advance for any info you can share on this issue, a fire in my garage would bad.
My wife was going to pick our kids up for school and was on a 60mph highway when the check engine light came on and the vehicle slowed down to 30mph in heavy traffic. She was able to maneuver off the road and get to safety. We took the vehicle to the dealership where they replaced the 3 fuel injectors for $1900. Vehicle has 38,000 miles. With such low miles and the fact that this happened on a highway in my opinion this is a major safety concern.
My car continues to stall/become powerless while driving even after replacing the low-pressure fuel pump as part of the earlier safety recall On Oct/28 2021by the dealer. The same problem started re-occurring once two weeks ago and again twice today while driving on busy road. It is a safety issue, my car has driven only 17k miles. I have visited the dealer last week and reported the issue and requested to check the fault code and ascertain the fault. They have expressed their inability to do it and said, the car is out of warranty. I think the problem is beyond the fuel pump or the work was not done in a proper workmanship manner.
Our 2019 Highlander xle ( VIN [XXX]) is currently at the Lonestar service department. Service Rep ([XXX]), Assistant Sales Manager [XXX], and [XXX], were fully advised of the stall problems of our vehicle on 9/13/2031. Our paperwork on previous tall repairs were left with [XXX]. On 9/13/2021, we left our 2019, Highlander XLE in the Toyota Lonestar Service department, Lewisville, Texas, for stalling (would not drive) repairs. They were fully notified of several stall episodes. The most recent stall was while driving, 30 mph in Denton, Texas, in heavy traffic, in the middle of an intersection. My wife was terrified when the car stalled. The screen went black. Her car mileage was 9344 mileage at this most recent problem 9/2021. My wife when she starts the car leaving the house. She always going through the procedure to turn off the "start/stop" function, before leaving our residence ("manually turns off the auto stop-start feature"). This vehicle has stalled, several times, in heavy traffic while wife was driving, putting my wife in personal danger. The vehicle is very much at risk of a serious traffic accident. The Toyota dealer, in Denton Texas, has been made aware this problem, when it was returned for service repairs several times. They have not fixed this on going problem at all. This car is a "Lemon". This problem has occurred (stalls occurred on 3/16/2021, and 3/26/2021, 5/17/2019)The care was taken to Lonestar Toyota and Denton Toyota for repairs on these stall occasions. My wife says there were additional stall episodes. The Denton Police have a report of my wife being stalled on I-35 in heavy traffic on 3/5/2021. We waited in a police car for four hours for a tow truck, because of dangerous fast traffic. My wife says two other police departments have similar reports of these stall episodes, when police responded, (Flower Mound Police was one she recalled. https://www.consumerreports.org/car-recalls-defec INFORMATION Redacted PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA), 5 U.S.C.
We purchased our brand new Toyota from the dealership in July of 2019. We used the dealership for every scheduled maintenance and maintained updated contact information the whole time. On August 6, 2021 when we were approximately 100 miles from home our car stalled abruptly in the middle of an intersection. The car was not driveable so we called a tow truck and we-€™re able to obtain a rental car. The car was towed to the nearest dealership which informed us the problem was due to a recalled faulty fuel pump. ( The first we had ever heard of the recall) The dealership fixed the car free of charge but denied us twice when we asked for approximately $450. 00 in reimbursement charges for the tow truck and car rental. We finally received a notice concerning the very long ongoing recall on or about September 2, 2021. We feel Toyota possibly knew about the dangerous recall when they sold us the car in July 2019. Thankfully it happened just as we were leaving a red light and no one was coming through the intersection, so no crash occurred
Problems: 1) Check Engine Light lit up. 2) "Hybrid System Malfunction" warning on heads-up display. 3) "Pre-Collision System Failure" warning on Heads-Up Display. 4) Gasoline engine stalls after an intentional deceleration and is unable to come back up to speed. First Event: On July 4th, my wife and I were driving on an interstate highway. We entered an exit ramp interchange to merge onto another highway and when trying to accelerate the car suddenly became sluggish, and gave messages for problems 1), 2), and 4) stated above. Problem 3) did not occur during this event. Messages stated to pull over in a safe location. We parked on the shoulder and immediately shut the car off, waited 5 minutes and then started the car again. We were able to drive to the next off-ramp to a city street (about 100 yards) before the engine started becoming sluggish again and lurching, error messages remained throughout the event. OBD codes stated simply "faulty engine" on a car with 16,000 miles. Dealership was unable to find a cause, but did find a code for ignition failure. They checked some things but did not do any repairs, and were unable to replicate the issue as it seemed to have cleared. Diagnosis was "vapor-lock" and no explanation for why. Second Event: On August 6th, my wife was driving the vehicle to visit family, when pulling onto an exit ramp, was unable to accelerate again afterwards. All the same warnings popped up, but this time also had problem 3). Engine stalled when warnings appeared and did the same sluggish lurching. After pulling off in a safe area, Shut the car off and tried to restart 4 times, warning did not clear. Gasoline Engine does not operate when pedal is pressed. Shut the car down for 2 hours and tried to restart afterwards, warnings still present, engine now runs when pedal is pressed, but stalls when idle. Shutdown for another hour while waiting for a tow, warnings still present, still stalls when idle. Waiting on callback from dealership.
Driving under "normal" weather conditions when the check engine light warning along with the hybrid maintenance warning light. The car stalled while trying to safely pull to the side of the road. The vehicle was towed to the nearest Toyota dealership. They confirmed fuel pressure codes p0087, p107b, p3190. I was told Toyota has not issued any updates for this problem. So I am stuck with a car that isn't safe to drive, especially long distances.
My vehicle was not part of the fuel pump recall like the other 3.3M vehicles from Toyota. However, my vehicle exhibited the exact same symptoms as those cars and stranded me on the side of the road twice. This included pushing on the accelerator and getting no response from the car followed by numerous system warning lights including hybrid system malfunction, front collision system failure, and check engine light. Initially, the dealership could not find anything wrong when I first brought it to them. The second time it happened, I was able to bring the car in with the check engine light still on so they were able to diagnose it and are currently replacing the fuel pump. My car (and many others) should have been included in this recall, this is a huge safety issue as this had me stranded on the side of very busy highways twice plus not being able to accelerate in traffic.
I was driving my car on a major intersection. The light turned green and I proceeded to make a left turn onto a major street. As I made it onto the street a warning came up that said "Hybrid system malfunction" and my car immediately started decelerating even though I had the gas pushed. I was able to sway to the right into a parking lot and stop the car before it stopped. My daughter was in the back seat at the time when the car failed and since we were in the middle of accelerating to get onto the major street when the car started decelerating, the cars behind me had to hit brakes/change lanes. I had the car towed to the closest Toyota dealership. They diagnosed it as a failed fuel pump. I looked up the issue and saw that Toyota had a recall on fuel pumps. I told them I wanted the improved fuel pump replacement. They informed me that my car was a Toyota Highlander Hybrid and my fuel pump was different than the recalled Toyota Highlander fuel pump and was not on recall. They replaced the failed fuel pump with the same product and assured me that the car was safe to drive and my fuel pump just failed and was not on recall.
While driving approximately 70mph on an interstate, lost ability to accelerate. Car started to slow down, forcing us to stop. Very fortunate no one was behind us or we would have been rear-ended. Multiple warning lights came on at this point, including the check engine light, AWD malfunction, pre-collision system malfunction and hybrid system malfunction. Contacted Toyota dealership immediately and slowly drove the car to dealership. Upon inspection, was told that the fuel pump failed. Was also told that the problem is a recall issue for other Toyota models but not for the Hylander. Car is now at dealership being repaired.
In the morning of 6/15/2021 while driving the 2019 Toyota Highlander Hybrid in 90+ degree heat on a busy Denver suburb thoroughfare, the Denso fuel pump failed causing multiple malfunction messages to be displayed and the engine to stall placing the SUV and me in a very unsafe situation in traffic. The SUV was partially in traffic because a curb prevented me from driving the vehicle out of traffic and the fail safe mode did not allow me to drive to a cross street to get the SUV out of traffic. Fortunately, a police squad arrived, parked behind me with emergency lights flashing until the tow truck arrived. The SUV was taken to a nearby Toyota dealer where Toyota service personnel in conjunction with Toyota engineering determined the Denso fuel pump was the problem and was replaced. Toyota has the Denso fuel pump. Moments before the SUV stalled multiple malfunction messages started being displayed including but not limited to: check engine light see dealer, pre-collision system malfunction, AWD system malfunction, Hybrid System malfunction, etc.
The vehicle was taken for service on 1/8/21 at Toyota of scranton for rear suspension problems. They had replaced arm away, trailing. We called again for device in February 2021 for problems with the car. It was scheduled for service on March 20,2021, which Toyota of scranton did not have the parts. In January 2021, Toyota mentioned nothing of the pending fuel pump recall. We received no calls from Toyota at any time for a recall. We became aware of the recall after we experienced problems with the car in February. Toyota has still not resolved the full pump recall.
I bought this car new with about 11 mile on it. The transmission immediately had shifting issues as it could not decide what forward gear to go into and shifted hard and felt as if it was going into two gears at one time and after a short drive the instrument cluster warning display indicated a check engine light and warning that the transmission was overheating and acted as if the engine was starving of fuel as it surged and did not deliver power to go beyond 35 mph. After I bought it the dealer reassured me at least three times that the car was okay and that this is the way that the transmission shifts. I repeatedly had the dealer check it and the dealer reassured me that there was no trouble code and no problems found although the check engine light was on and the instrument cluster showed transmission overheating and they fixed a wiring connector to try and fix the running problem. A class action suit came out for the fuel pump failure recall and the 8 speed transmission. I feel that this is a very common problem that the dealer and manufacture are trying to hide. After 13 months and 2,800 total miles the transmission overheated, burned up the internal clutch set and I now have no forward and reverse gears. I feel that the surging and transmission problems are a software defect as the shifting defect comes and goes and vastly promoted if I drive it very gently from a cold start. Once warmed up it does not act up as often except when two gears seem to be engaged at the same time. The key also intermittently does not allow the car to start and instrument cluster also shows trac light, ABS failure light, bsm not available, smart key failure, and complete black out of the instrument cluster and shown to the dealer mechanic and service writers and photographed and videotaped for documentation and in the repair orders.
Fuel pump recall was apparently in effect when vehicle was purchased in February 2020. Dealer (riverview Toyota, mesa AZ) scheduled service for the recall in October 2020. After dropping off the vehicle, asst service manager calls to inform me they don't have the part and don't know when it will be available. I drive my three granddaughters 5 days a week and I more than concerned that this issue still remains unresolved!
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
- Lebanon, PA, USA