general problems of the 2017 Toyota RAV4

While we were driving in the mountains, the wiring harness shorted and fried all 4 of our front bulbs, causing us to have no visibility while driving on unlit back roads in colorado. Toyota has a known TSB for this issue but claims it's not a safety issue, and has a kit to repair the issue, charging us $500 to install the kit. When asking about this 2 different employees explained it was a design issue with the car. Why is this not a recall? how is frying all my headlights not a safety issue?.

Even when properly aimed, with new headlight bulbs, visibility is poor at night. I recently had an incident while driving in town at less than 25 miles hour where I almost hit a deer that I could see on the side of the street, and this is actually not the first of many such incidents. I feel unsafe driving the vehicle at night due to the poor amount of light put out by the headlights. Toyota should offer to retrofit these with leds for people with issues. It's downrigtht scary, especially on poor lit streets or driving on the highway.

Both of my headlights burned out at the same time. I was driving on a rural mountain highway at about 7:30pm and was using my adaptive headlights. They were working fine, I noticed no issues, until they both burned out at the same time. It was dangerous, there was no shoulder to pull over on, and a steep drop-off I couldn't see and no warning whatsoever I'd be in pitch black dark in the middle of the road. Thankfully there was very little traffic, it could have been much worse. My dash camera captured the event and I've shared it to youtube. Https://youtu. Be/pljlqyca8-a no indicator lights ever came on, before or after. I had to drive the last hour to my destination through the mountains in the dark with only fog and running lights. I had been to the dealership for scheduled interval maintenance just the week before. A multi point inspection evidently didn't catch that both headlights were about to go out at the same time. Bulbs? wiring? relay? not sure what happened.

Discoloration/fogging of tail light lens on driver side. Picture uploaded.

I bought my Rav4 in September of 2017 brand new and within 6 months I had a dead battery needing replacement so I replaced it via aaa. Since then, I have had the battery replaced an additional 3 times! I always serviced my car at the dealer and took very good care of it. Then after 50k miles, I started having odd lighting issues…both headlight bulbs had to be replaced within 3 weeks of each other and one high beam bulb, and then my tail lights went out! then I would occasionally have trouble starting the car and with a natural gas smell, rotten eggs. Which could be a catalytic converter or fuel pump issue but can also be the battery. Well, my rav was in the driveway with a dead battery and with no tail lights and had been sitting there for a month since I mainly drive our sienna. My rav just caught on fire and was completely destroyed. No one was hurt but if the sienna had been out there it would’ve caught on fire and it burned the garage door…rav totaled! I also had a very expensive brake job last year and think those are faulty too. But this fire…. Was bad and I can’t get a car of equal value with what I received for the total loss. What is Toyota doing about this? less than 4 yr old well taken cared of rav 4 xle that I paid cash for and now can’t even replace with a corolla! there were no warning lights ever, not even for the dead battery’s. And less than 6 months prior to the fire, it was serviced at my Toyota dealer and they said all was good. The firemen that came also told me that Rav4 fires have increased and I searched on consumer reports and sure enough…what was explained was a carbon copy of my experiences. Thank god no one was in it when it started, but the house could’ve caught fire as well. Toyota needs to do something for those of us who had their cars totaled due to fire…just the time invested finding a replacement is worth something…. Not to mention the time vested researching vehicles before I bought the Rav4. Plus the depreciation, etc….

Vehicle has both extremely poor downroad and sideroad illumination. Very hard to see animals standing by the side of the road at night, resulting in several near misses with large deer. Upgrading the factory bulbs made little to no difference.

This and other year model Rav4s have a known and reported issue of the tail light lenses not being properly sealed with and connected to the tail light housing. This is allowing water intrusion into the tail light and electrical system and vehicle body. This is the case with both of my tail lights on my 2010 Rav4. Water has been entering the tail lights where the lens is not sealed to the housing. The lack of plastic welding / sealant can be seen at the lens and housing. Water is intruding corroding the electronics and electrical connectors as well as portions of the body. The lenses are becoming deteriorated and discolored due to the water intrusion diminishing the effectiveness of the rear lighting. Of course, this is a safety issue as well as the corrosion of the electrical connectors and electronics within the tail light that may cause them to completely fail. Toyota knows of these issues but refuses to address them.

The contact owns a 2017 Toyota Rav4. The contact stated that after turning the vehicle off and later attempt to restart the vehicle, the vehicle failed to restart. The battery was then recharged. The failure occurred on several occasions before the vehicle was taken to the local mechanic. The local mechanic was unable to diagnose a failure or determine a cause for the failure. Additionally, after opening the rear hatch door, the door failed to close and remained opened. The contact stated that water and condensation was present inside the rear brake light assembly. The cause of the failure was not yet determined. The manufacturer was not contacted. The failure mileage was 30,000.

Abh (automatic high beam) system disconnects randomly and shuts down the head light high beam. When this happens, the abh indicator on the dash goes dark. Abh may or may not come back on after several seconds. This happens at highway speeds with no other vehicles or lights around. This is a problem because there is no quick way to get the high beams back on. This has happened since the car was about 2 years old.

Automatic high beams (ahb) malfunction. When driving at night the ahb systems occasionally (every ~10 minutes lately) shuts down and the green "auto high beam" indicator goes off - resulting in total loss of high beams in all ambient conditions. This usually lasts about a minute and then the systems recovers. There are many cases of this reported on the internet - which can be found by googling "Toyota auto high beams malfunction". The issue seems to affect all Toyota and Lexus vehicles manufactured in the last ~3 years and equipped with ahb. Lexus owners seem to be able to successfully fix this under warranty by their dealers - the fix is cleaning the camera lens and the windshield in front of the camera. Unfortunately it seems impossible to get this addressed by Toyota. I had two dealer visits and two calls with Toyota customer service - each time they just try to convince me that "I am using it wrong". By the way I have a video of this happening and showed it my dealer but was denied warranty service nevertheless. A similar video available on youtube - just search for "a_32t4qtx4m" there.

When using auto head lamps and engaging the auto high beams (pushing the left hand switch in) they don't always turn on. Sometimes the green auto ready light will not come on which prevents the high beam (blue) light from turning on. I had no issues until about a month ago and now the high beams have refused to turn on a dozen times. I understand this is an intermittent issue, some times they work and sometimes they don't but it is very dangerous when driving on unlit back rounds to have my high beams refuse to turn on. I brought my car in to acton Toyota in littleton MA and they claim they could not reproduce the problem. They refuse to acknowledge there have been numerous complaints about the auto high beams not working properly since 2016. Since I drive back roads every day which do not have street lights, I need the high beams to come on reliably when I pull back the light switch lever. I understand determining root cause and corrective action on an intermittent is difficult but, they should be honest with their customers and admit the issue exists.

We recently purchased a 2017 Toyota Rav4 le. The first time we drove this vehicle at night we were shocked that, when using low or high beams, a dark area appeared across the entire windshield obstructing our vision. It is impossible to drive at night and feel safe. When you go up and down small hills, the darkness moves up and down as well, and is very annoying. We contacted the dealer and they said this was the way the car was made. They would do nothing and,in fact, told us that they didn't own the car anymore and that we should complain to Toyota; that if enough people complained perhaps they would have a recall. Frankly, we are afraid to drive this vehicle at night.

The contact owns 2017 Toyota Rav4. The contact stated while driving downhill at night with the headlights illuminated, the windshield darkened and he lost visibility of the roadway. The vehicle was taken to the dealer, who informed the contact that the windshield was compliant to safety standards. The contact stated that he had contacted an unknown dealer, who informed him that the failure was related to the design of the headlights. Additionally, the contact stated that while attempting to turn the key in the ignition switch, the key would not turn and remained stuck. The contact stated that he continuously attempted to turn the key while wiggling the steering wheel, and he was able to turn the key in the ignition switch. There was no warning light illuminated. The manufacturer was notified of the failure and a case was opened; however, no further assistance was provided. The vehicle was not repaired. The failure mileage was approximately 5,000.

The dash lighting during certain daylight conditions is unreadable, or requires excessive staring to determine quantities such as vehicle speed, fuel amount, and other quantities on the multi function information display (mfid). Whether it is unreadable depends on the angle of the sun relative to the vehicle. The inability to quickly see what is inadequately displayed forces the driver to either guess the speed or to stare too long in an attempt to ascertain the speed. This is a safety hazard. (I believe it affects other Toyota models as well as my Rav4 ev).