Gasoline Fuel System Problems of Toyota Highlander - part 2

I own 2005 Toyota Highlander on may 09,2011 I was getting on the free way and accelerated to merge into the freeway , I realized that the car was going full speed and that the gas pedal had gotten stuck. I was able to exit and press the brake with both feet, pushed in the emergency brake and pulled out the key. I don't know how I was able to stop the car and was lucky to find an exit that gave me more time to stop the car. The heater, air condition, radio and cd player all original stopped working one year ago. I had the car towed to the hayward Toyota dealer and they kept it until may 11,2011. The manager from the services department called me to inform me that it was ready to be picked up and that I needed to pay them $120. 00 for running the tests on the car. He stated that nothing was found and that I needed to pick the car up. I have two young children and I had a bad scare and could have ended in a terrible accident, until today I have nightmares of the indecent. I stated my concern to the manager that I did not feel safe driving the car with my children and loved ones. He said that I could trade it in. I informed him that I still pay the car and have a loan balance of $15,000. 00 with the bank I am driving a rental car and have to pay $19. 00 per day because the Toyota service manager could not give me a renter car for less than $25. 00 per day. I am a single mother with two children and can not afford a new car loan. I am requesting that Toyota pays me the blue book value of of my car and take their car back. I do not feel safe driving my car and I am very concern of the safety of my family. I ask that you please take time to investigate my urgent matter. Thank you very much blanca e. Gonzalez.

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When I start the car in the morning (or the first in that day) the car have strong gas smell . . I'm worried of a fire.

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I was involved in a car accident on 08/17/2010 while driving my 2008 Toyota Highlander that has 23000 miles on it. The accident caused me total damage to my car and put my life in danger due to failure in the break/acceleration system on the car. The car did not stop but accelerated even though when I was pressing the break which caused me to hit a truck that was passing in front of me. I explained to the emergency crew that the accident was because of failure of the break/and acceleration system on the Toyota car and I explained the same thing to the police officer who was presented on the scene. I like to mention here that the Toyota dealer sent me a note of defection about my car prior to the accident and I took the car to the dealer shop and spent 2 hours there to have it fixed. The car now is at the state farm insurance and I can email/send you the car pictures after the accident.

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2001 Toyota Highlander purchased new. About once a year it accelerates on its own. Reported problem to Toyota dealer in 2002 or 2003 - have receipt. We can stop the car with firm pressure on the brake. In most cases when we put the transmission into park the engine continued to race at high rpm. I can't remember all incidents, but believe that in some cases was able to slow the engine down by keeping my foot on the brake and putting the car back into drive. Other times I turned off the ignition. When I restart the car it is fine. Most recent occurrence was Sunday 4/18/2010 in parking lot of a&p on south avenue in clark or westfield, NJ. My wife was in the car with me. I had been driving the car for about an hour. The last half hour was on the garden state parkway at 55+ miles per hour. Was off the parkway for less than 5 minutes when I made left turn into a&p parking lot and another left in the parking lot. Driving less than 15 miles per hour. Then was almost stopped as I was about to turn left into parking space. Noticed the engine rpm seemed a little higher than normal and I became more cautious and made sure my foot was firmly on the brake pedal. The engine rpm began to increase rapidly. I pressed on the brake pedal as hard as possible and was able to keep the car from moving forward, but the engine would not stop racing. I put the transmission in park and the engine continued to race at full throttle. I turned off the ignition and the engine stopped. Restarted the car after a minute and it was fine. Don't believe I was pressing on the gas at the same time as the brake because the two pedals are far enough apart that to do so my foot could only be halfway on the brake pedal. In that case when I press hard my ankle starts to twist. I am sure my foot was centered on the brake in this incident because I had time to prepare and it felt firmly in the center. I don't think the gas pedal was stuck because I had been driving very slowly immediately before the incident.

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I've owned a 2005 Toyota Highlander since new, once in a while this condition would occur, now it is all the time. It just turned over 80k miles. I have not been notified of any recalls, not even Toyota no. 60f. When you are coming to a stop,at normal speeds,normal braking pedal pressure, just before the vehicle stops, it launches forward with your foot pressure on the brake pedal. When you apply more pressure as if there was an emergency, it is worse. My wife and I have learned to compensate by coasting then stopping. I emailed Toyota. Com about this twice, no answers.

Uncontrollable acceleration 2010 Toyota Highlander. 3 times on 2-10-10.

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This is in follow-up to my complaint #10306258 filed earlier this morning (Feb 5, 2010). I found my previous service order of July 23, 2008, from my Toyota dealership, on which I complained about the delayed acceleration when I pressed on the gas pedal. Their response, as documented on my repair order was scanned for error codes. None present. Characteristic of this transmission. ¿ on my previous report to you regarding this, I classified this as fuel system, gasoline and as electrical system, it looks like Toyota classified this as a transmission problem. Regardless, the facts are as I stated them and I still view this to be a dangerous condition. For the record, my vehicle was serviced on July 23, 2008 at west ashley Toyota, 2100 savannah hwy, charleston, SC 29414. Their phone number is 843-556-9110. My customer nbr is 82921. My concern was addressed on their invoice # tocs178222. I had my vehicle in for a checkup at the above dealership this morning, after my posting on your web site. I again inquired about my previously reported acceleration problem. The maintenance representative, heather, informed me that she knows of no problem regarding this. When I asked if I was the only one who is experiencing this problem and questioned the fact that no one else has complained about this to Toyota, heather told me that she personally has no knowledge of others reporting this.

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As published by media, my 2009 Toyota Highlander was subject to a recall by Toyota due to recent accidents making the car accelerate due to (apparently) stuck-up gas pedal). I called up cobb county Toyota in kennessaw GA to confirm if I need to bring my car back to their service center. They said "yes" and the only thing that they would be checking is my car's floormatting, which would take them only a couple of minutes. My concern is that what if it is not only the floormatting that makes the gas pedal stuck up and trigger uncontrollable acceleration of my car. Even if I have my checked by them just for that declared defect, I am still in danger of driving an unsafe car. I do hope full-blown investigation be made by your agency as to what is the real and root cause of the engine problem. Many consumers were already attesting through media that it was not the floormatting impediment that causes the sudden acceleration. Please help us be safe using this car or make a drastic action to oblige Toyota to examine thoroughly the cause and make permanent solutions to it to keep us at peace using the car. We have been consistently a Toyota car owners since 1980's and this is the first serious problem that we have encountered. I with your agency's help, we pray that we are in safe hands with our cars. If there would be no safety assurance, I am taking a risk every time I drive my car.

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)n the morning of 12-05-09, as I'm pulling into my garage, the car suddenly lurched forward with an unexpected increase in speed. Before I could brake, the car slammed into a steel shelving unit on the back wall which resulted in extensive damage to the wall ( both interior & exterior) and what appeared to be minimal damage to the auto. I took the vehicle to my Toyota service on that same day because I/we felt that this could constitute an unsafe driving condition. Total costs from this incident were as follows: covered by insurance- $3607. 81 (plus 703. 31 pd. Directly to the dealer?) and $916. 27 ( 500. 00 insurance deductible and an additional mechanical charge for a fuel/air sensor that failed on 12-26-09). I have not previously experienced "sudden acceleration" with this vehicle. I have notified both my local dealer, southeast Toyota distributors and Toyota customer relations regarding the problem stating that there may be other vehicles beyond the scope of their current recall that should also be considered as potentially dangerous. Updated 05/03. 10 Toyota denied the consumer claim, stating the vehicle examination revealed no apparent reason for the acceleration. However, the dealer that performed the inspection stated the throttle was became stuck due to gummy deposits cased by ethanol in the gasoline. Updated 08/210/jb.

Vehicle was in reverse and motor raced and vehicle traveled backward at rapid rate of speed and could not be stopped in spite of braking. Attempt to stop vehicle was unsuccessful. Vehicle only stopped when struck telephone pole. Problem was engine racing which could not be stopped. Accelerator seemed to stick down or accelerate without foot application.

Driving my new 2008 Toyota Highlander leased Dec. 2008. On 4-5 separate occasions while driving with the cruise control on I accelerated and the vehicle immediately went to full race. Pedal was not stuck. Could not turn off the cruise control. Shifting into neutral caused uncontrolled maximum rpms. Turning the key off and back on numerous times did not fix the problem. Eventually after about 20-30 seconds the problem resolved, engine slowed with no sign there had ever been a problem. This has not happened again since spring 2009 but that spring the 4-5 episodes happened within a few weeks.

Replacement of a charcoal canister on a 2003 Toyota Highlander. No accidents occurred as a result of the replacement of this part; however, I am concerned about the number of reports of having to replace this very expensive part. Also if the part is a safety hazard (may cause an engine fire) it should not be at the expense of the owner. The part is an emission control device that is surely required by the government. This action is taken because I noticed, while researching charcoal canisters that Toyotas come up frequently as having to have this type repair. At this writing I am unable to confirm the part is defective as it is the original part that came with the vehicle when I purchased it brand new. This is not a pre-owned vehicle.

2008 Toyota Highlander fails to shift into gear. Most occurrences at low speed after slowing to 5mph vehicle does not respond to gas pedal - or will not engage into gear and move forward. This occurs or is most noticeable at slow speeds when the gas pedal is pushed after having slowed down or in the midst of a slow down (not a complete stop) usually to wait for traffic to clear. Occurred with every driver of the vehicle (4). Most notable (scary) while my daughter was turning and trying to get out of the way of traffic. Car would not engage in gear, rpm increase, car reves up, but will not move forward out of the way of traffic. My daughter screamed. Taken to dealer at least twice. And continue to call and complain. Dealer states they had experts look at car, rebooted computer (because car responds to driver that drives the most!). Said nothing is wrong or can be done. Dealer has admitted that engaging is slow, noticeable. Failure to engage occurs daily. Consequence - in danger of not being able to move car out of the way of oncoming traffic. Nothing was done to repair. Computer re-set. (this is what I was told) vehicle also has experienced trouble while driving up hill. Rpm went to 4000 + and would not change gears. On freeway and slowing down. Had 6 high school girls in car. Also has "dropped" into gear heavily.

On may 9, 2007 we purchased a new 2007 Toyota Highlander. About a month later it unexpectedly accelerated and ran through the end of our carport while being driven in to park. Luckily no one was in front of it. The auto sustained about $650 in damages and the carport received similar monetary damages. About a month later we had a similar incident while parking in a parking lot. At first we attributed the incidents to my wife's foot someway slipping off the brakes and on to the accelerator. Now, after the recent national publicity, we are not so sure. Perhaps the accelerator mechanisim or software in this vehicle is defective in this model Toyota also. In the mean time, I now wonder if this model vehicle is safe to drive. I will bring this issue up to our Toyota dealer in the near future. I hope this information will be useful in helping the government and Toyota to solve this important issue.

The contact owns a 2002 Toyota Highlander. The contact stated that her vehicle has an oil leak, which requires her to add oil to the vehicle every two days. The dealer stated that this is an issue with the fuel system. The VIN, engine size, and mileage information were unknown.

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The contact owns a 2006 Toyota Highlander. The contact stated that the vehicle should get 35 miles per gallon in the city; however, it only gets 21 miles. He called the dealer and was advised to call the Toyota manufacturer. The manufacturer stated that they appreciated his input and comments. The contact feels that a recall should be issued. The failure mileage was 31,000.

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First startup in mornings. Sometimes vehicle fails to start on first attempt. Second attempt it starts but for several miles after, a strong odor of gas in cabin area. Must roll window down to allow ventilation. Wife first complained about this issue and I assumed it was because she was depressing the accelerator while trying to start vehicle. It was not until I attempted on several occasion and the same thing happened.

2004 Toyota Highlander engine dies, would not accelerate past 20 mph, engine light and vsc and trac off lights were on, would slow down to 10 mph without warning. The throttle body control unit was repaired several times. Jb.

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Identical to complaint #10114548 my event happened January 6, 2005 with less than 10,000 miles on vehicle. Now, at 35,750 miles, I have O2 sensor problems on a routine basis(3rd sensor on order from dealer right now). I am very concerned that these problems will continue past warranty, I have little faith in this vehicles safety and performance -every day I cross my fingers that nothing else goes "brakes" while driving with my 2 small children. This needs to be investigated.