general problems of the 2015 Toyota Highlander

I have noticed speed issues or high idling with this vehicle for a while. I committed a rear end collision with a vehicle on July 4, 2025, at approximately 2pm. My car rear ended his truck while it was stopped behind another vehicle. My vehicle sustained total damage to the front end. I was ticketed for not reducing speed to prevent a accident. The only warning light was that it need maintenance, which comes on prior to an oil change. My safety was put at risk because the car is idled too fast for the type of driving I do, which is small town and rural road driving. Due to the speed of this vehicle during normal driving, it's difficult to stop quickly to avoid an accident. If it was rainy and slippery, the situation could have been much worse.

Tl the contact owns a 2015 Toyota Highlander. While the vehicle was parked, the contact noticed that the rear side markers and headlights retained water. In addition, when parking and releasing the brake pedal, a loud unknown noise occurred from the rear of the vehicle. The vehicle was taken to northridge Toyota (located at 19550 nordhoff st, northridge, CA 91324, (833) 650-5833) where it was diagnosed that there was moisture in the headlights. The dealer recommended replacing the headlights due to faulty seals. The failure was not covered by a warranty and the vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was not notified of the failures. The approximate failure mileage was 45,665.

The following error message appears:“both accelerator and brake pads are depressed”. This is not actually being done. The vehicle will then brake suddenly on its own, and the driver must accelerate then brake quickly to disengage the automatic brake. This creates a highly dangerous traffic situation. It has occurred at high speeds on the expressway and makes merging into traffic especially risky. Vehicle has been inspected on 4 occasions by Toyota dealerships and they have failed to diagnose or repair the problem, simply stating that the problem "needs to go to corporate" and taking no further action. Issue has been reported to Toyota nat'l service center and am now awaiting resolution with the regional service engineer.

Back stop light get rain water! passenger side front break always wearing out before others breaks ! trunk door automatic broken! 3 row sit under need get rushed! seat belt mounted on the floor if you put mats pull you back all time ! ac went u turn on not working right away take 5-10 min to cool down !.

Touch screens audio system is not working for the pass two years.

We were driving during heavy rains at freeway speeds. Traffic was slowed ahead. The system signals an alarm that traffic ahead is slowing, a very nice feature. However, while the alarm was going off, I depressed the brake pedal with zero response, likely due to the abs not wanting me to slide on the wet roads. However as I got closer and closer to the slowed traffic ahead, I needed to press the brake harder and harder. The brakes simply stopped decelerating the Highlander and we smashed into the back of a smaller vehicle. While I appreciate abs and the desire to prevent sliding, I must be able to stop my vehicle. I have read countless complaints about this occurring, yet I do not see a resolution.

When the car had 20k miles the brakes would shake when going down hill, took it in but they found nothing wrong. I have since had the rotars turned brakes replaced and when braking the brakes shake really bad its scary. I have also had too many electrical problems with the door locks one goes out then next week another, the outlets have never worked and now the stereo is going to be replaced because it blacks out and restarts constantly.

Driving forward into parking space. Just about stopped. Pressed break. Car lurched forward at hight speed suddenly, causing car to jump curb at top of parking spot and careen down hill (onto side walk). Car out of control for about 2 seconds. Was able to break in hill, which prevented me from hitting car parked perpendicular on street below. Bottom of car scraped curb when car jump curb and lurched forward. Bottom front bumper scraped. There was an icy patch at top of parking space. It seems like when wheels rolled on top of icy patch, the car lurched forward. Car might have accidentally been on cruise control at the time.

Had a problem with a 13 mo. Old Highlander(still under warranty). Was backing into my garage when the brake pedal suddenly broke(rubber piece fell off). It caused my foot to slip off the brake and consequently backed into a refrigerator we had in the garage. It ruined the refrigerator and damaged the back of the Highlander($1000+) worth of damage. Filed a claim with Toyota(corporate) and cooperated fully with their investigation. After 4 ½ mos. Of getting nothing but a run around from Toyota finally got their answer to the problem. They said the vehicle was fine(why then did the brake pedal fall apart?) and that they didn¿t care at all about my problem. They also didn¿t answer why the brake pedal fell apart if ¿all was fine¿ as they asserted. Kind of like what Toyota did 6 or 7 years ago when the accelerator problem first showed up. Back then their first reaction was to blame th victims(owners) for causing the problem!! I suggest to others to not buy a Toyota. As my problem shows, if an unusual problem happens they will not stand behind their vehicle or design!!.

While the vehicle was being driven, the power cut out and a message appeared on the dash stating that the brake and accelerator were being depressed simultaneously -- but they were not. This happened three times in a row. We had the vehicle toward to the Toyota dealer where purchased. They could not figure out what was wrong and attributed the problem to "driver error. " the dealer's mechanic produced a report indicating that similar malfunctions had occurred in the prior two months with no notice to the driver. Toyota could provide no explanation for this. Toyota claims that nothing is wrong and refuses to repair or replace the vehicle.

Popping sound coming from right front side when breaking to a stop at all speeds. The problem was first noticed at around 2500 miles and the car was taken to the dealer at around 2900 miles. Dealer inspected it and couldn't find what the problem was. Then as instructed by Toyota replaced the right front strut assembly but that didn't fix the problem. The car was returned to me and I was told there were no safety concerns and that Toyota was sending one of their techs to troubleshoot, but that may take a couple of weeks. In the mean time the problem seems to be getting worse.

Clunking noise from rear end of vehicle when braking, dealer was authorized to change rear away bars and shocks, no fix, now Toyota corp. , says this is normal characteristic of vehicle ? I don't feel safe driving vehicle with noise, and as brakes feel soft also.