2018 Toyota Highlander

While traveling down the Rocky Mountains, we experienced a gradual loss of braking. It took extreme pressure on the brake pedal to slow the vehicle. At this point there were no warning lights. Later down the road, the same thing occured again and a BRAKE warning light illuminated. Traffic was light and the incline was slight which prevented an almost certain accident. We limped the vehicle to the dealer. The diagnosis was a Brake Booster failure. This is a 5 year old vehicle with only 57,000 miles! I have never had a booster failure on any vehicle in my life. This booster should be designed to last the life of the vehicle since it is part of such a critical safety system on this vehicle. The failed component was kept by the dealer.

2018 Toyota Highlander braking power low warning light came on twice. Mechanic determined it is the brake vacuum booster pump which can cause the brakes to fail to stop the vehicle. This was a recall on some of the 2018 manufactured Highlanders but not all. Many are now failing like mine. I have had it replaced luckily before a major accident and serious injury. Toyota knows of issues but will not recall without NJTSA direction EVEN THOUGH CRASHES MAY HAPPEN.

UNKNOWN We have had the vehicle for just over 2 years and out of the blue we get a SRS airbag warning indicator that says visit the dealership. The dealership says that it is $2300 to repair a wiring harness that they Are unsure of the location though. The vehicle has 86,000 miles on it which is 26,000 miles over coverage for that part. In my opinion this is the part that should not fill this early and should still be covered. Much less the SRS components should never fail. We are forced to drive with a warning indicator that comes on every five seconds and blocks all the other information.

The windshield in our 2018 Highlander suffered three cracks before we finally had the windshield replaced. According to the company that performed the repair, we are one of many Highlander customers that have had these issues. We know that rocks were the cause, but the number of incidents appear to be higher than normal. To avoid having another problem, we added a protective coating to our windshield at an additional cost of $600. We assume this to be one of many incidents, and want it to be known that this appears to be a defect in glass specification and/or manufacturing.