general problems of the 2001 Toyota Highlander

As my wife was slowing the vehicle to a stop in a parking lot, the vehicle seemed to experience an acceleration on its own. She felt as if the accelerator got stuck so she immediately pressed brake with her left foot and accelerator with the right foot in an effort to 'release' the accelerator pedal. This was a reflex move on her part because it happened so fast. The vehicle hopped over the parking lot curb, landed on the grass and came to a stop. I was standing 50 feet from the car when this happened. The only thing I noticed was a braking sound and when I turned around the car had hopped and was on the grass. We took the car to the local dealership who couldn't find the cause or replicate the problem. They said there's no problem with the car. A month has gone by since the incident and there hasn't been anything unusual with the car since.

Speedometer stopped (went to zero) while car operating at 65 mph. Registered complaint with Toyota, who advised it was acceptable defect, and would not fix the problem.

This complaint relates to a design defect which makes the instrument cluster and especially the speedometer unreadable a significant amount of the time when the driver is wearing sunglasses. I cant't drive without sunglasses. The problem is that there is not enough light incident on the recessed instruments to make them readable under these conditions. This vehicle like all in the southeast u. S and lots of other areas has the tinted "privacy glass" installed on the rear windows which contributes to less light inside the vehicle. I believe that this is a safety issue in that I depend on the speedometer to know how fast I am going when entering curves, on-ramps, etc. The vehicle is too smooth and quiet to judge speed any other way. This could be inexpensively fixed just by having the instrument cluster lights on all the time.