Body problems of the 2005 Toyota Highlander

On Saturday, may 30th at approximately 8:30 I was moving our 2005 Highlander from the street into our reserved parking space within our complex. As I was starting my right hand turn into the complex the car accelerator stuck. I hit the curb on the driver's/left side causing the vehicle to veer to the right. As the car continued to accelerate I hit a tree and knocked over one of the community's posted signage. The impact made the car bounce backward partially into the drive, damaging the front passenger's side, drive shaft broke, front end part flew all over and a small fire occurred. Police were call and report taken. They estimated the speed at 20-30 miles per hour. The report taken was not filed since the accident took place on private property. The tow truck driver started the vehicle to get it on the truck. He had a difficult time for he could not get the wheels to turn. On Tuesday, June 2, we were notified by our insurance company that the vehicle was totaled. There was a recall repair done on may 21, 2011, after we were advised that the replacement parts were available to install the forward retention clip used to secure the drive's side floor carpet cover. We were advised that if it was not installed properly, the cover may lean toward the accelerator pedal and interfere with the accelerator pedal arm. If this occurs, the accelerator pedal may temporarily become stuck in a partially depressed position rather than returning to the idle position. An accelerator pedal temporarily stuck in a partially depressed position may increase the risk of a crash. There must have been a failure of the replacement part.

Both power rear windows came out of their pwr window tracks. This allows the window to fall to the fully open position. When this happened it caused severe air buffeting inside the vehicle. It's so severe that it feels like the vehicle is vibrating apart. This extremely loud painful sound causes panic as to what happened and sever ear pain. The only way to stop the buffeting is to quickly pull off the road and stop. The open window also exposed occupants and pets in the rear seat area to falling out. According to the dealer this is a common defect as the track on the bottom of the window that connects to the power window motor arm migrates slowly along the bottom of the window each time the window is operated until the motor arm falls out of the track. Then the window is free to fall down and cannot be closed until the vehicle is stopped. There is no service bulletin covering this. I received a chuckle from the dealer as he told me about this common $250 per window fix.

On 7/23/2011 I was at a complete stop in my vehicle. I was hit from behind by a car traveling 70mph+ and pushed into a car in front of me. The air bag light went off, but air bags did not deploy.