My 2021 Toyota Highlander with 60K Miles Needed a New Transmission, and Now At 65K There’s a New Problem, But the Dealer Can’t Figure It Out

My Honda Pilot has 274k miles and the transmission is fine. It's also original.

We had to have are tranmission replace at 38 k miles . It took Three months to get a replacement from Toyota. It wasn't covered under warranty 8 k to replace the tranmission.
2018 Highlander Limited Platinum edition. The new tranmission is working wonderful.

I bought my Toyota Highlander brand new in 2004 and I am still driving it. It has been a wonderful vehicle, all I have ever replaced was the power steering pump. For maintenance purposes I replaced S belt, spark plugs at 100,000 miles, tires regular maintenance. It has never failed an inspection and I still enjoy driving it. Never let me down.

What makes the battery cost $400+ for my 2017 Highlander Limited? That's what I was charged by Autonation Toyota in Fort Myers Florida to Install a new battery two months ago. They had the nerve to charge $59 installation and a $47 shop fee. After being a loyal Toyoya customer since 2000, owning 11 Toyotas, I will never deal with them again!

330000 km and all I've had to do is replace brake pads on my 2018

Sadly I bought my 2021 Highlander used at 89,000 mi. from a Honda dealership in Ohio I was convinced by the dealership that he would stand by the vehicle and the warranties just aren't what they're meant to be. I was a fool. I purchased a vehicle from a on Saturday by Sunday. I had found the whine and the TSB about the transmission.
I immediately contacted the dealership and they said oh, that's terrible. We'll stand by it. By Wednesday I had it into a local dealership and they confirmed the. After the initial and forth and repeated denial it could possibly cost that much to fix it they then proceeded to ghost me and ignore my phone calls and requests for help.
So now I'm driving my very expensive vehicle on borrowed time.

I had to replace my power tailgate door cylinders on my 2021 Toyota Highlander, with less then 29,000 miles. The cost was over a $1,000 dollars 🤨

Our 2019 Highlander (75k miles) has the same whining noise. Dealer said $10k to replace. Toyota wouldn't help even though they've known about problems with this tranny. Traded it in.

Toyota used to be known for reliability. Not anymore. They didn't stand by there products.

We have a 22 highlander xp when going down the road it like my highlander has a skips or a trimble unless we take off the stop start mode then sometimes it still does it we took to dealer we bought from was told we was imagining things I love the highlander but kinda makes me mad to pay as much as we have for a defective vehicle

New purchase 2020 Toyota Highlander started
Making noise at 64k miles.
My warranty ran out 2 months before it happened but they offered to fix it if we chipped in (participate d) $1000.00. .
That was 7 months ago. They say their waiting on the transmission.

I purchased a 2020 Toyota Highlander and discovered in October 2024 when I noticed a whining noise that I needed my transmission replaced. I have been waiting for 6 months and whenever I followup with the dealer I am told I am first in line. To add to this, shortly after, all my lights came up on my dash. (Power brake malfunction, engine ligh, power steering malfunction and more). My parking brake was locked and was unable to disengage it. If i tried to drive my rear passenger tire would not turn and drag. I had to have my vehicle towed to the dealership. Turned out it was the brake sensor harness was corroded. This was not covered by the warranty and cost over $1600 canadian to replace. All this under 100,000km. Starting to question the reliability of this vehicle. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

I purchased a 2020 Toyota highlander and discovered in October 2024 that I needed my transmission replaced. I have been waiting for 6 months and whenever I followup with the dealer am told I am first in line. To add to this, shortly after, all my lights came up on my dash. (Power brake malfunction, engine light, power steering malfunction and more). My barking brake was locked and was unable to disengage it. If I tried to drive, my rear tire would not turn and would drag. I had to have my vehicle towedto the dealership. Turned out it was the brake sensor harness that was corroded. This was not covered under a warranty and cost over $1600 canadian to replace. All this occurred under 100,000km. Starting to question the reliability of this vehicle. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

This is why you don't buy cars during or after covid. Still unsure if even 2025 are good enough. Then you add on the price, hard pass

I was told that the 8 speed transmission is NOT dependable.

Thanks to Luis for his information. My 2020 Highlander was making sounds when accelerating. I brought it to the dealership today and it was the transmission. It only had 47,308 miles. The advisor at the dealership told me that the transmission is no longer being made and the new transmission can take 3 to 4 months or more to get. They don't have a long-term rental car at this time leaving me without a vehicle. The advisor is trying to see how I can get a rental vehicle but he doesn't know when.

I have a 2021 Highlander platinum with 81,000 miles. Toyota just denied the claim to cover my whining/failing transmission.

My 2021 Toyota Highlander XLE AWD at 60K miles required a catalytic converter replacement (warranty covered) now at 65K the transmission has the whining noise and required transmission replacement. Quoted price $9.3K. Waiting for dealership offers on repair. I was concerned with buying a vehicle during the COVID years and my suspicions came true! I miss my 2004 Highlander that I drove for 20 years with no problems.

Have the same issues 30k transmission noise. Toyota changed it (6 months later) and then a few days after that steering wheel all of the sudden stuff on highway with steering power low (with a bunch of other failures LTA/AWD/start stop/etc) Toyota recommending $7k worth of repairs for car that is not 5 years old and is less than 4 years old (2021)

2021 Toyota Highlander xle (75000 miles) with whining transmission. I took it to an individual transmission repairman. He changed the fluid and said it looked fine. Whining has gotten worse. Seems to shift fine. Expecting to have to replace transmission like the bulletin recommends. Why doesn’t Toyota do the right thing and do a recall??

We bought our 2021 Highlander Platinum in 2022. It had like 5k or a little more miles on it. We nevet had an issue untill a few months ago. My wife started hearing grinding noises in the car. We could figure out what it was. Our car now has about 70 k miles and is out of warranty but we purchased a fullbwrap war from our dealership. After research we found out about the trans problem. We took it to our local Toyota and had to pay 250 for the inspection. Of course it the trans and has to be replaced. Well Toyota says iys out of their war coverage and trys to tell us that the extended warranty did not cover whuch was a bunch of B.S. we paid like 3 to 4 grand for a full wrap extended warranty. The dealership we bought it from and purchased the extended said that it did cover they did t know what was going on. Any way they set up for our local Toyota to do replacement of trans. Im pretty sure this dealership is paying for it as whoever is over the ext warranty is just refusing. After the trans replacement just acoulle days mind you. We start getting this message of voletage abnormality low steering level and kept losing the power steering. We took it back in and they found what they thought fixed it. There was a wire or something loose. My wife picked car up from Toyota just 30 mins ago amd I be dammed its doing it again. So shes headed back. I got on here to see if I could find anytbing and stumbled upon this. So here is our story so far. I can update you when we find out more.

So I submited a comment earlier but have more update. Once again wr have a 2021 Toyota Highlander Platinum bought in 2022 with 5k miles. A few mths ago (our car now has 70kmiles)we started hearing a whine or a humming in our car. Looked online and seen about all the transmisaion issues. We took into Coad Toyota in Paducah Ky. They told us tgat the transmission had to be replaced. Ofcourse being 5k milea outta warranty nothing Toyota would do at all nothing. We did buy a full wrap extended coverage from Trice Hughes the dealership in Princeton Ky that we purchased it from. We even had trouble getting the extended warranty place to take care of. We got the transmission replaced and picked up 3 days ago. Welp yesterday just a day after picking it up our car starts saying voltage abnormality low steering level and the power steering started coming and going. We call Coad Toyota yhe place that replaced trans and they said bring it in that something may have not been conected ot conectes correctly. We tookin this morning. They tell us theybwould call us when found out something. They call my wife a couple hts later say she can pick it up. She picked up and drove about 2 mins and it does it again. Shes takes back and they look at it again. This time they say the power steering has completely gone out and will need replaced. Another 4 grand and it was nothing they did or caused it just a coincidence I guess and Toyota will do nothing this time either. When asked what they did the 1st time that supposedly fixed it they said oh we just ck the connections and cleared the message off. So they said pretty much nothing. I asked how they new this second time it needed replaced but didnt the 1st time. They told me they wernt sure. I tbought tbey hooked up to a machine that told them whays wrong but apperantly not on this. There is absolutely no way thia ia a coincedence. So.ething during the transmission swap and or issue caused this. We never had anything about the power steering come up untill they changed it. Several other Toyota mechanics have also saod that it is not a coincedence. I have no idea what to do but Im sick of Toyotas crap. I would like to get a word out. Someone make them be held accpuntable for shitty customer service and awfull put together vehicles they have made.

My 2022 Toyota highlanders transfer case just went out at 70k miles. Luckily I paid for an extended warranty that will cover the 4k+ expense. I’m concerned for my transmission.

I have had the same issue with my 2021 Toyota Highlander Platinum 70k miles and recently had a new transmission out in. About 3 days after obtaining my vehicle from the dealer I get Voltage Abnormality- Low Power steering. See the dealer" message. Along with that the icon of a steering wheel pops up and causes me to not have steering control of the vehicle. I have now taken the vehicle to 3 different dealer and have had the battery replace, the steering rack and none of which worked. Now they are saying its the engine harness that need s to be changed. I am hoping this is it and thank God I purchased an extended warranty when i got the vehicle because I would have to be fitting these bills.