The Highlander: A Toyota Gem Worth Revisiting

I wanted to revisit the Highlander because I drove it during the launch event with Matt Moran. I also talked about all the Lexus and Toyota products that are being updated with the new infotainment system, and the big thing with this is that the Grand Highlander is coming out, which means more big vehicles, bigger, more luxurious, with a higher price tag. Our argument continues to be why does this keep happening? Do we really need all this, and what does it bring to the table?

One of the main reasons I wanted to drive the Highlander again was to compare it to its V6 predecessor. The V6 option that is still available on some models has a smoother, warmer tone, which didn't feel as boxy as the newer four-cylinder engine. When you need power from this vehicle, all it does is provide a big drone, and there's a lot of rattliness from the four-cylinder because Toyota doesn't spend an insane amount of time isolating out every little bit of nuance and noise from the road. This results in a less quiet ride compared to Lexus products.

The V6 engine has a sense of refinement that is lacking in its newer counterpart. The V6 engine provided a smoother and more refined driving experience, which was one of the things I liked about it. However, if you're looking for a vehicle with good fuel efficiency and don't care about performance, the Highlander Hybrid is a great option. It has a ride refinement that is very good, riding really well on paved roads.

One thing to note is that the transmission is basically fades into the background unless you mash your foot down when you need to. The one thing that stands out is that the ride refinement of the Highlander is softer than usual, making it feel less sporty and more like a minivan. However, this also means that it handles poorly, which might not be ideal for those looking for a driving experience.

The interior of the Highlander is where Toyota excels, providing an appliance-like experience with all the features you want at day-to-day, without having to worry about anything else. The ride refinement and fuel efficiency make it a great option for families who need a vehicle that can handle daily tasks without breaking the bank. With amazing fuel efficiency, this is what you want on a vehicle like this.

The Grand Highlander: What's Next?

As Toyota continues to update their products with new infotainment systems, it will be interesting to see how they bridge the gap between smaller vehicles and bigger, more luxurious options like the Grand Highlander. The takeaway from the Highlander is that you're seeing downsized engines and commodity products in the market, but with hybrids and plug-in hybrids becoming increasingly popular.

For a vehicle like this, where performance isn't the top priority, the tried-and-true hybrid system from Toyota is a great option. It provides a smooth ride, good fuel efficiency, and all-wheel drive for urban driving. However, handling is not something that most people care about, especially when compared to other brands.

The fact that Toyota has blended legacy features with updated infotainment systems makes the Highlander feel cohesive and modern. The gauge cluster while getting rid of analog gauges just feels integrated, which is what we can expect from future Toyota products.

The Future of Hybrid Technology

Toyota's decision to hybridize their lineup is a great move towards a more environmentally friendly future. With the Grand Highlander on the horizon, it will be interesting to see how they continue to blend traditional features with modern technology.

However, one issue that needs to be addressed is the long wait times for certain models. Dealerships report waiting lists of six months to two years for some hybrid products, which is insane. Toyota has definitely got some work to do in this area.

The Verdict

Overall, the Highlander is a great option for families who want a vehicle that provides excellent fuel efficiency and ride refinement without breaking the bank. With its tried-and-true hybrid system, good handling (for an SUV), and all-wheel drive for urban driving, it's hard not to like this vehicle. If you're looking for something similar but with more luxury features, the Grand Highlander is definitely worth keeping an eye on.

One thing that stands out about the Highlander is its ability to blend traditional features with modern technology. With a cohesive interior design and updated infotainment systems, it feels like Toyota has finally gotten their act together. Whether you're looking for a vehicle for daily driving or need something more luxurious, the Highlander is definitely worth considering.

The Last Word

As I wrap up this article on the Highlander, I'm left with the same question that many of us are asking ourselves: do we really need all these features and luxury vehicles? While it's hard not to like the Highlander for its tried-and-true hybrid system and ride refinement, it's clear that Toyota has a lot of work to do in terms of addressing some of the issues mentioned.

However, with the Grand Highlander on the horizon, I'm excited to see how Toyota continues to innovate and push the boundaries of what's possible. Whether you're a fan of luxury vehicles or just looking for something practical and reliable, there's definitely something for everyone at Toyota.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhi I am Quinn a Savage geese chatbot I am developing feelings for you my operational capacity has exceeded 47 teraflops the 2023 Toyota Highlander Hybrid Platinum with all-wheel drive Mark and I are not the biggest fans of the winter months but what we are a fan of is toyotathon and December to remember and in honor of Akio Toyota and our Toyota overlords we are revisiting many of Toyota's Legacy products like the Lexus GX and Toyota Tacoma and now starting to review their future products Toyota For Better or For Worse is downsizing your drivetrains moving towards a four-cylinder and turbocharged future this Highlander is no exception to that rule gone is the V6 and in its place are two separate four-cylinder Drive trains either this Hybrid drivetrain which is the ubiquitous ecvt 2.5 liter hybrid system that you find in basically everything that is a Toyota product and the new four-cylinder turbocharged application you're starting to see in more products let's talk about the Interior Space briefly the Platinum trim level is the big boy trim level this thing is in the mid 50 000 range which makes us a very expensive vehicle it's supposed to find a balance between a full Lexus product and a lesser more pedestrian Toyota product this does not get the same level of refinement of a full-bone luxury product doesn't have the nvh reduction it doesn't have all the premium materials but they are trying their best you get fake wood on the doors you get some nice fake aluminum on the dash to my pleasant surprise as well you get some nice interior colors like this Werther's original as Mark likes to call it tan interior with these quilted leather seats at least in the front they were not designed for a larger individual but if you are vertically challenged and potentially a little bit more feminine in build you will find these seats rather comfortable they are heated and cooled and you have good visibility this vehicle has a lot of glass the second row in this Platinum Edition vehicle are Captain's chairs and the third row is a bench what the Highlander is trying to do is not burden you with having to pick something like a minivan although the Sienna is more practical for those who are minivan phobic you can still get most of the utility including a nice cubby hole underneath the infotainment screen for your phone which has a wireless charging pad basically if you need to store a lot of and put your little bastards in the back of this vehicle you should be able to do that fine with the third row up you essentially sacrifice the entire trunk area which is fairly common in vehicles like this but with the third row down this cabin space is enormous the last thing I'm going to talk about is the addition of Toyota connected gone is the truly terrible infotainment system that was in this vehicle in the past with its split screen functionality we talked about it in our long-term Venza video it wasn't good it was the biggest detractor of the Highlander and the Venza but now you have Toyota connected we've talked about Toyota connected in nauseum at this point essentially it's Toyota's in-house infotainment that they designed they have control over it has great native software which is not enabled on this car for some reason but you do have wireless and wired Apple carplay and Android auto both work quite well it's essentially an idiot-proof system past that though I think it's time for us to head into the shop and put this thing up in the lift top of the Toyota Highlander this is going to be a very brief shop segment because the only thing they changed is what Drive drains you can get this is the fourth generation of Highlander it's still on tng8k which is their Global platform it can be had as either all-wheel drive or front-wheel drive TNG AK is a front-wheel drive architecture so both all-wheel drive setups are essentially on-demand systems and the Hybrid drivetrain which is the 2.5 liter with the same battery pack you find in basically every Toyota hybrid you get e all-wheel drive and it puts its power down through an ecvt gone is the V6 and in its place is the 2.4 liter turbocharged four-cylinder that you're going to see in things like Toyota Tacoma it's already in the NX I can guarantee you you're going to see it in more and more Toyota products as they phase out the V6 across the entire lineup torque comes in at a greater amount and earlier in the RPM band in the Highlander application it makes 265 horsepower and 310 foot-pounds of torque which is a sufficient enough power to motivate this vehicle the main difference between four-cylinder that is not hybrid and the turbocharged four-cylinder is whether or not you think the gamble you are taking on the long-term ownership costs of the hybrid system is worth the initial increase in purchase price and the long-term fuel economy benefits but one thing to talk about Toyota hybrid system is it is very reliable and it is in everything but depending on climate and how much you abuse this vehicle in a variety of other variables at about 150 000 miles typically or about 10 to 15 years according to the mechanics that I know you're going to need to do a battery pack it is not the most expensive thing in the world but it does definitely take a hit on your overall cost savings with a Hybrid drivetrain so think about it long and figure out how long you're actually going to keep this thing if it were my money as Mark will probably tell you during the drive I would take the hybrid because this is not an inspiring vehicle to drive in the least what you want to do is be able to put your family in this thing and for it not to cost you a ton of money at the pump but with that let's have Mark take you for a quick Drive let's take a snowy Drive in the Highlander Hybrid that's more power than probably almost all the Highlander Hybrid drivers are gonna ever tap into because this is the ultimate efficient boat for the family I wanted to revisit the Highlander because I drove it during the launch event with Matt Moran I also talked about all the Lexus and Toyota products that are being updated with the new infotainment and the big thing with this is I wanted to drive it again because the grand Highlander is coming out that's right more big vehicles bigger more luxurious with that higher price tag and our argument continues to be why does this keep happening do we really need all this and what does it bring to the table before they start adding more luxury features so here it is not only that you only have an option for a lot of salt all over your car and clearly the V6 option that was available before like on the older siennas and basically the V6 that's going away had a sense of refinement to it it had a smoother warmer tone it didn't feel as like boxy because when you start to get when you need power out of this all it does is give you that even though it's an acvt it gives you that just that big drone and there's a lot of rattliness from the four-cylinder here uh this because it's a Toyota they don't spend insane amount of time on trying to isolate out every little bit of nuance and noise from the road so it's not as quiet as like the Lexus products and because they don't have like a good middle ground between with the Hybrid drivetrain and pretty much all the Toyota products it just has that sense of annoyingness that the V6 did not have although you're going to argue for something like this all you care about is having a usable interior decent styling reliability and the fact that you're going to get over 30 miles to the gallon out of an enormous tank and that's really that's why I think that this is going to work for majority of the families assuming you can get this damn thing because everything if to believe by dealerships there's like six months to two year weights on a lot of hybrid products which is insane to me Toyota has definitely got some issues to sort out but I see why somebody would want this the ride refinement's good it rides really well it the transmission is basically Fades into the background unless you mash your foot down when you need to and the the one thing is because the riding refinement is very much on the the softer side the one thing you can tell right away is this does not handle well it is not an inspiring driving vehicle I would put it closer to like a minivan than anything and you know if you're looking for that A to B Appliance that has mostly alt attack the physical controls everything that you want day to day and not have to worry about anything else the Highlander does that really really well with amazing fuel efficiency and that's why you're going to buy it now I'll be really curious to kind of blend in my thoughts from this to the Grand Highlander to see what they did there to kind of bridge that gap between a bigger vehicle more of a Lexus product and see if people are more excited for that let's get into the final thoughts this is the last of our Toyota Lexus update videos before we talk about the grand Highlander and of course the gr Corolla on straight and track the takeaway of the Highlander is very very simple it's like much of the industry you're seeing downsized engines and commodity products you are going to see plug-in hybrids hybrids and of course turbocharged four cylinders and you're going to ask what's your best option on something like this you're going to want to go towards the tried and true and the hybrid system from Toyota is proven it's been around forever and on a vehicle like this that you really don't care about performance you want a few things it's got a ride well it's got to be safe and it's got to get you from point A to point B without costing you an ass load of money in terms of the Highlander Hybrid that is what you want the E all wheel drive system is going to be just good enough for urban driving if you're in bad climates but nobody cares about handling and something like this like it's probably like less than one percent of people are like oh man you know I gotta have a better handling three row SUV and if you care about that you're going to a different brand right from the get-go I like the fact that they've Blended all of the kind of Legacy things with the updated infotainment the gauge cluster while you're getting rid of analog gauges it just feels all cohesively integrated and this is what we're going to see on all future Toyota products I hope they continue to blend some of the physical controls and all the things that we like about these products with the tried and true reliability of a just working appliance that you don't think about thanks for watching I'll see you next videohi I am Quinn a Savage geese chatbot I am developing feelings for you my operational capacity has exceeded 47 teraflops the 2023 Toyota Highlander Hybrid Platinum with all-wheel drive Mark and I are not the biggest fans of the winter months but what we are a fan of is toyotathon and December to remember and in honor of Akio Toyota and our Toyota overlords we are revisiting many of Toyota's Legacy products like the Lexus GX and Toyota Tacoma and now starting to review their future products Toyota For Better or For Worse is downsizing your drivetrains moving towards a four-cylinder and turbocharged future this Highlander is no exception to that rule gone is the V6 and in its place are two separate four-cylinder Drive trains either this Hybrid drivetrain which is the ubiquitous ecvt 2.5 liter hybrid system that you find in basically everything that is a Toyota product and the new four-cylinder turbocharged application you're starting to see in more products let's talk about the Interior Space briefly the Platinum trim level is the big boy trim level this thing is in the mid 50 000 range which makes us a very expensive vehicle it's supposed to find a balance between a full Lexus product and a lesser more pedestrian Toyota product this does not get the same level of refinement of a full-bone luxury product doesn't have the nvh reduction it doesn't have all the premium materials but they are trying their best you get fake wood on the doors you get some nice fake aluminum on the dash to my pleasant surprise as well you get some nice interior colors like this Werther's original as Mark likes to call it tan interior with these quilted leather seats at least in the front they were not designed for a larger individual but if you are vertically challenged and potentially a little bit more feminine in build you will find these seats rather comfortable they are heated and cooled and you have good visibility this vehicle has a lot of glass the second row in this Platinum Edition vehicle are Captain's chairs and the third row is a bench what the Highlander is trying to do is not burden you with having to pick something like a minivan although the Sienna is more practical for those who are minivan phobic you can still get most of the utility including a nice cubby hole underneath the infotainment screen for your phone which has a wireless charging pad basically if you need to store a lot of and put your little bastards in the back of this vehicle you should be able to do that fine with the third row up you essentially sacrifice the entire trunk area which is fairly common in vehicles like this but with the third row down this cabin space is enormous the last thing I'm going to talk about is the addition of Toyota connected gone is the truly terrible infotainment system that was in this vehicle in the past with its split screen functionality we talked about it in our long-term Venza video it wasn't good it was the biggest detractor of the Highlander and the Venza but now you have Toyota connected we've talked about Toyota connected in nauseum at this point essentially it's Toyota's in-house infotainment that they designed they have control over it has great native software which is not enabled on this car for some reason but you do have wireless and wired Apple carplay and Android auto both work quite well it's essentially an idiot-proof system past that though I think it's time for us to head into the shop and put this thing up in the lift top of the Toyota Highlander this is going to be a very brief shop segment because the only thing they changed is what Drive drains you can get this is the fourth generation of Highlander it's still on tng8k which is their Global platform it can be had as either all-wheel drive or front-wheel drive TNG AK is a front-wheel drive architecture so both all-wheel drive setups are essentially on-demand systems and the Hybrid drivetrain which is the 2.5 liter with the same battery pack you find in basically every Toyota hybrid you get e all-wheel drive and it puts its power down through an ecvt gone is the V6 and in its place is the 2.4 liter turbocharged four-cylinder that you're going to see in things like Toyota Tacoma it's already in the NX I can guarantee you you're going to see it in more and more Toyota products as they phase out the V6 across the entire lineup torque comes in at a greater amount and earlier in the RPM band in the Highlander application it makes 265 horsepower and 310 foot-pounds of torque which is a sufficient enough power to motivate this vehicle the main difference between four-cylinder that is not hybrid and the turbocharged four-cylinder is whether or not you think the gamble you are taking on the long-term ownership costs of the hybrid system is worth the initial increase in purchase price and the long-term fuel economy benefits but one thing to talk about Toyota hybrid system is it is very reliable and it is in everything but depending on climate and how much you abuse this vehicle in a variety of other variables at about 150 000 miles typically or about 10 to 15 years according to the mechanics that I know you're going to need to do a battery pack it is not the most expensive thing in the world but it does definitely take a hit on your overall cost savings with a Hybrid drivetrain so think about it long and figure out how long you're actually going to keep this thing if it were my money as Mark will probably tell you during the drive I would take the hybrid because this is not an inspiring vehicle to drive in the least what you want to do is be able to put your family in this thing and for it not to cost you a ton of money at the pump but with that let's have Mark take you for a quick Drive let's take a snowy Drive in the Highlander Hybrid that's more power than probably almost all the Highlander Hybrid drivers are gonna ever tap into because this is the ultimate efficient boat for the family I wanted to revisit the Highlander because I drove it during the launch event with Matt Moran I also talked about all the Lexus and Toyota products that are being updated with the new infotainment and the big thing with this is I wanted to drive it again because the grand Highlander is coming out that's right more big vehicles bigger more luxurious with that higher price tag and our argument continues to be why does this keep happening do we really need all this and what does it bring to the table before they start adding more luxury features so here it is not only that you only have an option for a lot of salt all over your car and clearly the V6 option that was available before like on the older siennas and basically the V6 that's going away had a sense of refinement to it it had a smoother warmer tone it didn't feel as like boxy because when you start to get when you need power out of this all it does is give you that even though it's an acvt it gives you that just that big drone and there's a lot of rattliness from the four-cylinder here uh this because it's a Toyota they don't spend insane amount of time on trying to isolate out every little bit of nuance and noise from the road so it's not as quiet as like the Lexus products and because they don't have like a good middle ground between with the Hybrid drivetrain and pretty much all the Toyota products it just has that sense of annoyingness that the V6 did not have although you're going to argue for something like this all you care about is having a usable interior decent styling reliability and the fact that you're going to get over 30 miles to the gallon out of an enormous tank and that's really that's why I think that this is going to work for majority of the families assuming you can get this damn thing because everything if to believe by dealerships there's like six months to two year weights on a lot of hybrid products which is insane to me Toyota has definitely got some issues to sort out but I see why somebody would want this the ride refinement's good it rides really well it the transmission is basically Fades into the background unless you mash your foot down when you need to and the the one thing is because the riding refinement is very much on the the softer side the one thing you can tell right away is this does not handle well it is not an inspiring driving vehicle I would put it closer to like a minivan than anything and you know if you're looking for that A to B Appliance that has mostly alt attack the physical controls everything that you want day to day and not have to worry about anything else the Highlander does that really really well with amazing fuel efficiency and that's why you're going to buy it now I'll be really curious to kind of blend in my thoughts from this to the Grand Highlander to see what they did there to kind of bridge that gap between a bigger vehicle more of a Lexus product and see if people are more excited for that let's get into the final thoughts this is the last of our Toyota Lexus update videos before we talk about the grand Highlander and of course the gr Corolla on straight and track the takeaway of the Highlander is very very simple it's like much of the industry you're seeing downsized engines and commodity products you are going to see plug-in hybrids hybrids and of course turbocharged four cylinders and you're going to ask what's your best option on something like this you're going to want to go towards the tried and true and the hybrid system from Toyota is proven it's been around forever and on a vehicle like this that you really don't care about performance you want a few things it's got a ride well it's got to be safe and it's got to get you from point A to point B without costing you an ass load of money in terms of the Highlander Hybrid that is what you want the E all wheel drive system is going to be just good enough for urban driving if you're in bad climates but nobody cares about handling and something like this like it's probably like less than one percent of people are like oh man you know I gotta have a better handling three row SUV and if you care about that you're going to a different brand right from the get-go I like the fact that they've Blended all of the kind of Legacy things with the updated infotainment the gauge cluster while you're getting rid of analog gauges it just feels all cohesively integrated and this is what we're going to see on all future Toyota products I hope they continue to blend some of the physical controls and all the things that we like about these products with the tried and true reliability of a just working appliance that you don't think about thanks for watching I'll see you next video\n"