Home Forums Gear Hunting Trucks and Four-Wheel Drives What about a Highlander?

The wife is looking around for a new SUV and Consumer's Reports sure writes up the Toyota Highlander in glowing terms. It looks like it has a few more creature comforts than the nearly equal size 4Runner and the 3.5 engine gets better gas mileage than the 4.0 in the 4Runner with more horsepower. As I understand it the 4Runner is built on a truck frame while the Highlander is unibody construction. Probably AWD or 4wd makes more sense up here in the north than the two wheel drive versions. The Highlander hybrid V6 version gets 25 mpg overall which sure isn't bad for an SUV. Both of those Toyota's are smaller than our current GMC Acadia which I keep telling her isn't broken yet at 120,000 miles. Opinions appreciated.

My brother bought a certified highlander from a Toyota dealer and he loves it

Toyota is getting the hybrid thing down pretty good. My son has a Prius. 50 mpg highway. In 8 years of hard driving, it's been flawless. Hybrids get a lot of criticism but I wouldn't be afraid of that one.

We bought a 2019 Limited AWD (non-hybrid) for my wife about 2 months ago. So far we’re loving it. We’ve put about 3,000 miles on it and are averaging about 24.5 mpg.

I have a 2019 XLE AWD with 1k on the odometer, absolutely love it.

We have 60k on a 2015. A great family truckster. Great for trips.

From what I've heard, yours might be about the only one.

Have those 120K been mostly highway miles? Just curious.

FC

We have a little over 118,000 on a 2014 Highland and could not be happier. It gets 22 or so mpg on the road, rides great and has enough leg room to travel in comfort. I can't think of an SUV that I would replace it with.

My wife has a 2018 Highlander. It has a 3rd row (small but handy for little kids), 3.5 liter w/Atkinson, 8-speed, AWD, downhill control, snow mode, and diff lock. It rides nice but the steering feels vague to me. With power mode active, it has pretty good acceleration and gear shift changes.

I find the default radar cruise control, auto start/stop, lane departure, and steering assist annoying but my wife likes all those features. You can disable all of it. I'd rather not have any of it, including the Atkinson. Simpler, and lower cost would have been my preference.

I like the 4Runner a bunch, but since we also have a Tundra we got the Highlander. I think there is more room for the 2nd row, and just seems more comfortable. With the Tundra, I didn't seen a need for the 4Runner.

If you are considering the hybrid, I think it still has ICE powertrain for FWD, and an electric motor for the rear. In other words, there is no link between the engine and the rear diff. A co-worker told me that he had a hell of a time getting one unstuck in the snow, as the rear would not power. On the non-hybrid, you can use the diff lock to keep all 4 wheels powered. His was an older hybrid, so things may have changed. And getting stuck isn't an everyday occurrence, so the fuel mileage benefits might be worth any trade offs in terms of low speed traction.

I rented an Acadia for over a week, and actually took it on some Jeep trails in Sedona. The pink Jeep tours were surprised and concerned to see us out there! I liked the Acadia. We averaged 18 mpg mixed, city and highway. My wife drives her Highlander almost 100% in the city and is getting 19 mpg over the last 10k miles.

Jason

My wife loves her 2015 Limited AWD. Bought new in late 2014, now has right at 60,000 trouble free miles. We chose it over the Ford Explorer and Edge . She says she would buy it again.

I just picked a new 2019 Tundra over an F 150 for a lot of the same reasons we went with the Highlander....better and quieter ride and for sure better workmanship. Better reputation for reliability too. Built in the USA also.

I like Toyotas and drive a Tundra. My wife has owned 2 Highlanders and no complaints on either but last year we decided to trade hers in. We thought we wanted another Highlander but ended up buying a Honda Pilot. If you use the 3rd row the Pilot is much bigger than the Highlander. My wife is 5'10" and can sit in the back (3rd row) of the Pilot no problem. We took a road trip last weekend about 9 hours of highway driving and average 28.8 MPG with 2 adults and 3 kids. The ride is similar to the Highlander with just minor differences.

My wife has a 2011 Highlander with about 140k on it. Her previous one was a 2004 model with right at 200k on it. Both have been great vehicles and were bought used with 40-50k on them. When we bought the 2011 model, we also drove a similar vintage Honda Pilot and liked the Highlander better. Next time around, we'll likely do the same and make a fresh comparison.

You guys are mirroring what I'm reading and hearing from other sources. I've been talking to Pilot owners and they don't get much better mileage than the Acadia in the low 20's, so that 28.8 is kind of a surprise. Yes FC, the GMC has mostly highway miles but that V6 doesn't use a drop of oil between changes (my usual criteria for trading one off) and aside from an early steering issue and an intermittent back up camera in hot weather, it has been a good car.

CR gives the Highlander a high 85-87 overall score with a road test rating of 82-85 and mpg of 22-25. The 4Runner must be sprung tighter and that one only gets a 59 overall with the road test score of 55 and 18 mpg with a lower reliability score. The new GMC Acadia and ours certainly isn't new and the new ones are shorter, in contrast gets an overall score of 64 with a road test score of 83 and mpg of 19. Reliability is worse than average for the GMC and better than average for the Toyota something that you have been writing for years on here.

4th Point, an interesting take on that 4wd hybrid drive train in slippery getting unstuck conditions. I'm not sure what an Atkinson transmission is exactly though I have read that people thought that the older 6 speed automatic was a smoother transmission than the newer 8 speed.

Atkinson cycle refers to a combustion cycle type of the engine, not the transmission.

Like 4th point I'm not crazy about all the fancy electronics, BLIS is fine and radar cruise is ok on the highway but otherwise needs a little more fine tuning. The lane departure is annoying as all get out. The 8-speed transmission is fine 98% of the time but every now and then it'll get a little confused as to which gear it should be in. We bought it to serve as our daily family hauler to/from work and lugging the kid around and it's been great for that. We took it on 1 road trip to Amarillo and it was plenty comfy to spend an extended period of time in.

Pilot getting 28.8 maybe the Avg display is saying that, My Highlander has gotten as high as 32.4 MPG but hand calculated so far 27 mpg. I ran a couple of comparisons between the Pilot and the Highlander, there is not enough difference in the interior dimensions as listed below..


On the inside, the Pilot boasts seating for up to eight people, with 152.9 cubic feet of total passenger volume. The Highlander can also seat eight, with a maximum passenger volume of 144.9 cubic feet, depending on the model. The Pilot has 16.5 cubic feet of cargo space with all three rows of seats in place, and 83.9 cubic feet with the second and third rows folded. The Highlander offers 13.8 cubic feet, and 83.7 cubic feet, respectively.


I will take the Highlander V6 over the Pilot engine any day of the week. Timing chain vs Timing Belt no contest. I know of many people that have highlanders with over 200 k on them , have not heard that number mentioned when it comes to Pilots.

Yes the 28.8 was computer not hand calculated. We have a short trip planned coming up so will do a hand calculated version. I am sure the computer is not dead on but would hope within 1 MPG. I will say the Ecom mode doesn't buy you anything on it. In Econ mode it seems to struggle doing 70 or 75 mph and ends up using just as much gas. Would be fine on highway doing 60 mph. My Tundra computer is always high vs hand calculated by 0.3 to 0.6 mpg but never more than that and I probably tested it 100 times within the last 3 years. Around town the computer is normally around 21 MPG for the Pilot.

The latest version of the Highlander is closer in size to the Pilot. My 2012 Highlander was no where near the same size as the 2016 Pilot which is the latest generation. The 3rd row seat area is what is different on the Pilot vs the Highlander. If you don't need it the point is moot. But its not just leg room and shoulder room the height is much larger on the Pilot so an adult can fit back there not just a kid. With 3 kids that is important to us since we often haul the inlaws with us to the kids games.

Besides the 3rd row probably not a lot of difference between the 2 as far as price, MPG, and reliability. I think if you read the current Edmunds write up its probably the higher rated of the 2.

I have/had a few vehicles that gave out avg fuel mileage and it was usually a 4mpg difference on all of them. I don't even use the Econ mode. I drive at 75mph on the highway and best I have done is 27 mpg and that was a 80hw/20city ratio of mileage . My tundra mpg calculator was not even remotely close, the 15.3 MPG got old after a while. I have no use for the third row seats so they are always down, so instead I bought the 2 captain chairs for the middle seat . If I wanted a bigger vehicle I would have sprung for a Sequoia or Tahoe.


I have bought equal amounts of Honda's(Civcs and Accords) and Toyotas(Avalon,Camry and Trucks) . They Toyotas have been easily the most troublefree. I had one lemon Civic which I got rid of 2011 model year.

The Toyota Highlander, a great vehicle, cant go wrong. My family has three white ones, two Limiteds, and an XLE. Heck their late models, probably 2016 to 2018 models, have that start stop crap, but you can disable it.

Plenty of power to travel in the Appalachian mountains and pretty good fuel mileage.

+1

Just turned in a leased Highlander after 3 years. Had a choice of the Enclave. Pilot or Highlander.

Went with the Highlander. The Enclave, while a nice vehicle, has lower resale value, thus a higher lease.

The Pilot, although a nice vehicle with good resale, just isn't up to the quality and ride of the Highlander in our opinion.

With the lease, we never buy tires, batteries, etc. Three year lease, three year warranty. Lease payment is the only expense. Two years of free oil changes.

Not bad if you plan to be rolling them over, keeping a late model, always ready to rock and roll...


And if you know about how many miles you'll drive per year. We do and it works out.

DF

A lease is ok IF you want never ending payments and plan to always have a new car. For most of us, it's a loser. You just keep paying and never own it. I bought my 08 pickup in '12 and haven't made a payment in 7 years. It's still very new looking and runs great.