Our Long-Term Toyota Grand Highlander Crisscrosses the Country

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30,000-Mile Update

Three-quarters of the way through its time with us, our long-term Toyota Grand Highlander is one of the most popular choices for family road-trip duty. Since our last update, it’s been a very busy bee.

Our Grand Highlander ferried senior editor Greg Fink’s family to Colorado and back, covering some 3600 miles. Road warrior Jacob Kurowicki drove it to the farthest reaches of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula in support of a tire test we were conducting, racking up another 1000 miles. My family of five has whiled away countless hours in its three spacious rows of seats; we took a 2000-mile round trip to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, over Thanksgiving, followed by a 1000-mile midwinter run to Hershey, Pennsylvania, and then racked up another 2500 miles during spring break driving to Florida and back.

We’ve been running Goodyear Assurance WeatherReady2 all-weather tires during the winter months, which have been praised up and down for their cold-weather performance—on the way back from Hershey, we appreciated the tires’ sure-footedness through a sloppy storm that transitioned from rain to ice to snow. But if you’re crisscrossing the country and experiencing wildly different weather patterns, the tires remain admirably grippy no matter the ambient temperature. It’s a much better experience than rolling on dedicated winter tires in 90-degree Florida heat, where you can practically feel the soft rubber’s tread blocks shredding in real time.

As is the norm with today’s sensor-clad vehicles, the Grand Highlander provides warnings when its electric eyes are gunked up. Toyota’s warnings, though, can never be turned off, which is immensely annoying. When driving through a slushy midwestern storm, the sensor warnings popped up early and often. But even after acknowledging and dismissing them, the warnings keep coming back, flashing in the driver’s peripheral vision in perpetuity. Does Toyota really expect owners to stop every five minutes to wipe off the sensors?

Is that a nit-pick? Yes. But we find ourselves picking nits with the Grand Highlander because the underlying vehicle is so fundamentally solid. We all agree with editor-in-chief Tony Quiroga’s logbook sentiment that “the Hybrid Max powertrain provides intoxicating passing power and acceleration for the segment,” and the Grand Highlander’s generous interior space makes it a great tourer. With no significant mechanical issues to complain about, we get caught up in smaller annoyances, such as the wireless-charging pad’s lack of barriers to keep devices from sliding off.

To date, one of the most common complaints has been the lack of highway range, with drivers struggling to go even 300 miles between fill-ups. As it turns out, it wasn’t our fault—it’s Toyota’s extremely conservative distance-to-empty calculation. Recently, we ran a test where we ran the tank completely dry, and despite an indicated zero miles of range remaining, we were able to drive another 60 miles at highway speeds. On subsequent road trips, actually using the gas left in the tank has allowed us to push the SUV’s total range closer to 400 miles, which is way more reasonable.

We’ve also been busy solving problems of our own creation. When we attempted to shove the liftgate closed with a hold full of cargo, we ended up pushing hard enough to leave a crater-like dent. Oops. While we acknowledge our clearly superhuman strength, we also maintain that the sheetmetal seems a little too flimsy, an increasingly common industry trend. We picked up a $140 Harbor Freight dent repair kit and managed to fix the worst of it. Thin body construction also is the likeliest cause behind our Grand Highlander’s mild hood flutter at highway speeds, but a trip to Harbor Freight won’t solve that one.

Passing the 25,000-mile threshold means we’re now on the hook for service, and what a harsh wake-up call that was. Fortunately, the 20K-mile service, which included an oil and filter change, tire rotation, and inspection, was covered, otherwise we would’ve been on the hook for $156. During that service, our local Toyota dealer also performed recall work regarding the functioning of the Grand Highlander’s key fob and the curtain airbags, plus a service bulletin for supposedly harsh shifting from its transmission. Meanwhile, a tire rotation and inspection set us back $47. So far, not bad. However, after informing the dealer that our rig needed a 30K-mile service, they handed us an estimate for over $1400. What?!

Looking at the details, they were trying to upsell us on an early change of the rear differential fluid (the owner’s manual says “inspect,” not necessarily replace), an alignment (despite reporting no drivability issues), changing brake fluid (Toyota doesn’t specify an interval, but every two years is typical), plus some “fuel induction” and “EFI cleaner” snake oil. After paring down the service to what the owner’s manual actually calls for—an oil and filter change, new engine- and cabin-air filters, and a tire rotation—the bill was a vastly more reasonable $325. This is yet another reminder that not all dealers are working in an owner’s best interest; do your research ahead of time so you don’t get stuck paying for margin-padding nonsense.

With the weather warming, our desire to hit the road will only grow. Now that we’re not stopping for gas every 250 miles, these last 10,000 miles should accumulate in no time flat.

Months in Fleet: 12 months Current Mileage: 31,775 miles
Average Fuel Economy: 23 mpg
Fuel Tank Size: 17.2 gal Observed Fuel Range: 390 miles
Service: $372 Normal Wear: $0 Repair: $0
Damage and Destruction: $60

20,000-Mile Update

So much for the honeymoon phase. Now that we’ve reached the halfway mark of our 40,000-mile test of the 2024 Toyota Grand Highlander, it’s time to deal with the real tedium of ownership—namely, service. The Grand Highlander calls for relatively frequent visits to the dealer, with scheduled service stops every 5000 miles. But oil changes are required only every 10,000; the 5K stops cover simple tire rotations and inspections. Thankfully, all service is gratis for the first two years or 25,000 miles as part of the ToyotaCare program included with every new Toyota. So, for now, we’re still riding the freebie train.

Along with its scheduled maintenance, our Grand Highlander got a software update to remedy a recall for curtain airbags that may not deploy in a crash, which means we can once again drive guilt-free with the windows down (whenever the polar vortex lets up, at least). We also asked our dealer for the transmission software update to address harsh shifting—it’s Technical Service Bulletin (TSB) 0017-24—and we noticed an immediate improvement.

Speaking of the polar vortex, we’re all geared up for a frosty Midwest winter after outfitting our Grand Highlander with a $1183 set of Goodyear Assurance WeatherReady 2 tires. These are all-weather tires, rather than full-blown winters, but they have far more traction on snow and ice than a typical all-season tire, enough to earn the three-peak mountain snowflake on their sidewalls. We’ve been impressed thus far with their slippery-surface traction, especially considering the rubber doesn’t flop over and give up when pushing the limits on a dry on-ramp. While we’ve long been voracious cheerleaders for installing winter tires, these latest all-weather options provide enough winter traction that we no longer think it’s an absolute must to go through the hassle of swapping gear twice a year and storing the second set of tires and/or wheels.

Our Grand Highlander continues to be one of the top picks in the fleet for road trips. Recently, chief brand and content officer Eddie Alterman trekked out to the east coast to visit family. Alterman praised the GH for its “great seats and visibility,” as well as “nicely weighted steering with good on-center feel.” Your author loaded up his family of five for a run from Michigan to South Carolina to visit family over Thanksgiving, and it once again served us well—though we noticed that the GH’s ride gets considerably floatier when weighed down with five people, luggage, and a hitch-mounted cargo carrier.

Despite the effusive road-trip praise, there’s always room for a gripe or two. Editors have leveled many beefs at the cabin’s screens, whether it’s confusion at the tedious gauge-cluster configuration or outright frustration when wireless Apple CarPlay won’t automatically reconnect to a previously paired phone. We’d also love to know why the navigation map won’t hold our preference for a north-up view. There have also been numerous reports of phones flying off the wireless charging pad, since Toyota offers no surrounding features to anchor a device in place atop the charger during even modest cornering.

Our observed fuel economy is holding steady at 24 mpg, which is considerably below the 27-mpg EPA combined figure. But that’s likely because we do so much highway and long-haul driving, where hybrids tend to perform relatively worse than their nonhybrid counterparts. No matter how we put ’em down, though, we’ve still got 20,000 more miles with the grandest Highlander, and we’re hoping the last 20 are just as easygoing as the first 20 were.

Months in Fleet: 9 months Current Mileage: 23,709 miles
Average Fuel Economy: 24 mpg
Fuel Tank Size: 17.2 gal Observed Fuel Range: 410 miles
Service: $0 Normal Wear: $0 Repair: $0
Damage and Destruction: $60

10,000-Mile Update

You may think everyone on staff is angling to nab the keys to a sports car for the weekend, but more often than not it’s the most practical vehicles that are the most sought after. When it came time to choose a vehicle for long-weekend summer trips to lakeside towns in northern Michigan, the best answer was usually the Toyota Grand Highlander. We’ve also done plenty of back-and-forths to Chicago and one long jaunt to the middle of Iowa.

Partially because of these longer trips, our average fuel economy has held steady at 24 mpg. While that’s considerably better than the 21 mpg we averaged in our long-term (and nonhybrid) Kia Telluride, it falls short of the GH’s 27-mpg EPA highway label. As with many hybrids, the Grand Highlander’s fuel economy gets less and less impressive as speeds rise.

Editor-in-chief Tony Quiroga put the Grand Highlander to work in both household and office moves and remarked that the cargo hold is “deceptively large.” However, the cargo space behind the third row is still tiny compared with a minivan’s, so when the author loaded up his family of five for a beachy summer vacation, we also employed a hitch-mounted cargo carrier and, for maximum lifestyle points, strapped a paddleboard and a kayak to a suction-cup-mounted roof rack (fuel economy dropped to 21 mpg on that leg). Quiroga and pretty much everyone else has praised the GH’s “quiet and comfortable” cruising demeanor. There’s been plenty of praise for the comfortable front seats, too, with Buyer’s Guide managing editor Drew Dorian saying the seats staved off backaches for seven hours straight. We also appreciate that the passive entry works on all four doors—many family SUVs don’t, and it’s annoying when you’re trying to first load little ones in back before opening the driver’s door.

A topic we’ve spent significant brainpower on is towing. We want to take advantage of the Grand Highlander’s 5000-pound tow capacity, but ours didn’t come with the $930 factory setup. We figured we’d just order the hardware from a dealer’s parts counter, but it was on backorder nationwide. So, we bought a Curt hitch from Etrailer.com for $316 that we easily installed ourselves, no drilling or bumper removal required. Dare we say that it’s an even better design than the factory unit, which requires a new bumper close-out panel. The next hurdle was wiring. The factory harness is a four-pin unit, but we didn’t want to rule out hauling trailers with electronic brake control, so we bought a seven-pin adapter kit ($108) that requires running a power line from the battery to the connector. We’ll also use Curt’s Bluetooth trailer brake controller, which saves the hassle of hardwiring in a fixed unit. We haven’t done much towing yet but will provide an update on how the GH fares in the next update.

Toyota calls for a service visit every 5000 miles, which is a relatively short interval these days, but oil changes only happen every other stop. Our first service stop was merely a tire rotation and a series of inspections, while the second one included an oil-and-filter change. Both are no charge, part of ToyotaCare included service for the first two years or 25,000 miles. The USB-C data port in our vehicle has never worked, but the dealership said we needed to schedule a separate appointment to get that looked at after we mentioned it during our routine service.

Although we haven’t had any major self-inflicted wounds—just a $60 repair due to a windshield chip—vehicle ownership is never perfectly peachy. Full disclosure: I was the one who dented the rear liftgate when trying to force it to close on an overfilled cargo area. Not sure why the sheetmetal oil-canned so easily, but we should be able to pull it out with a cheap dent-puller kit. Our GH is affected by a recall due to the curtain airbags possibly not deploying properly if the front windows are open. There’s still no remedy, but we’ve instructed everyone to drive with the windows up. Other regular complaints call out the nearly all-black interior of our Limited trim for not being nearly as upscale as some competitors’, such as the Telluride, and, even worse, the low-gloss plastic on the center console is showing all manner of scuffs and scrapes in a relatively short amount of time.

Although we love the effortless power of the Hybrid Max powertrain, it has surprised us with some clunky shifts, especially when driving aggressively. As Quiroga says, “The solution is to chill out. Do so and the Grand Highlander is remarkably luxurious and refined.” This is perhaps why his initials are very likely to appear next to the GH’s name on the sign-out board on any given weekend.

Months in Fleet: 5 months Current Mileage: 12,100 miles
Average Fuel Economy: 24 mpg
Fuel Tank Size: 17.2 gal Observed Fuel Range: 410 miles
Service: $0 Normal Wear: $0 Repair: $0
Damage and Destruction: $60

Introduction

As with McDonald’s Super Size or 7-Eleven’s Double Gulp, the new Toyota Grand Highlander is a grander Highlander in that most American way: It’s significantly bigger than the smaller three-row Highlander. A lot of the Grandness lands in the 26 percent more voluminous third row, which is now acceptable for adults. There’s also 31 percent more cargo space behind that third row, making it spacious enough for five carry-on-sized suitcases. This elevates the GH to the larger end of the ranks of three-row mid-size SUVs, while the junior Highlander is on the smaller end of the class. At $44,465, the least expensive Grand costs $3800 more than an entry Highlander because the Grand’s trim levels don’t dip as low, but on comparable trim levels, the up-charge is as little as $550.

The Grand Highlander forms the basis for the Lexus TX and also introduces a new Hybrid Max powertrain. The Max combines the base 265-hp turbo four with a motor between the engine and six-speed transmission, plus another motor at the rear axle that provides all-wheel drive. The powertrain totals 362 horsepower, and the GH’s combination of swiftness (60 mph in 5.7 seconds) and fuel economy (27 mpg combined) is unmatched in the segment. This setup also eliminates the droning CVT effect from Toyota’s traditional hybrid approach, which lives on in the mid-grade GH hybrid.

Hybrid Max was a key contributor to our naming the refined, quiet, and spacious GH to our most recent 10Best Trucks and SUVs list, so naturally, we opted for it in our long-term test car. It’s available only in the top two trims—ours is the more modest $55,435 Limited, which is a $4580 upcharge over a base Limited, and $2980 more than the lesser hybrid; there’s also the top $59,520 Platinum. Unlike many of our long-termers, this one wasn’t built to order, so we won’t be able to take advantage of our GH’s 5000-pound towing capability until we get a hitch installed, which we plan to do posthaste. Our Coastal Cream off-white example has just two options: the large sunroof ($1350) and a 360-degree camera system ($600). It also features a few accessory knickknacks—door protectors, wheel locks, all-weather floor mats, and logo puddle lamps—that brought the total to $58,178.

As with most hybrids, the fuel economy we’re getting at real-world highway speeds is below window-sticker value (we logged 24 mpg on a swift run to Chicago and back, for example), but we’ve notched as high as 29 mpg on a more city-intensive tank.

So far, everyone on staff loves the effortless and responsive thrust of the Max powertrain—its rolling-start and passing times comfortably beat all comers in our most recent comparison test. Another regular accolade is its quietness at highway speeds, which tied the Kia Telluride, another regular favorite of ours, for tops in that same test. The GH’s braking and cornering figures, however, aren’t nearly as impressive.

Making plans for the all-American summer road trip has the Grand Highlander’s sign-out line growing. This one is going to get to 40,000 miles quickly.

Months in Fleet: 3 months Current Mileage: 6928 miles
Average Fuel Economy: 24 mpg
Fuel Tank Size: 17.2 gal Observed Fuel Range: 410 miles
Service: $0 Normal Wear: $0 Repair: $0
Damage and Destruction: $0

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