2019 Toyota Highlander

I have 2019 Toyota Highlander and it has less than 78k miles. A few months ago ago it started barley noticeable wheezing sound and then it got progressively worse. I took it to a the mechanic and he said it was the transmission. It expensive to fix and I saw that a lot if people are complaining about the same problem. I think Toyota should be responsible for replacing the faulty transmissions. My car has been sitting in the driveway because I can’t fix it.

Car Manufactured in April 2019. Transmission failure at 113,000 miles. Before failure, the transmission had a whine and lag when accelerating from a full stop, creating an unsafe situation when pulling into traffic. The cost to repair is over $9,000, and the part is on backorder for several months. The NHSTA facilitated a voluntary service bulletin with Toyota that extended the warranty for the Highlander model years 2017 to 2018 for issues related to the UA80F transmission. The service bulletin should extend to the 2019 model year, as the issues are the same and the transmission model is the same, and possibly for models built early in 2019, which likely have transmissions built or component parts from 2018.

The contact owns a 2019 Toyota Highlander. The contact stated that while stopped at a traffic light, the vehicle failed to accelerate as intended while depressing the accelerator pedal. No warning lights were illuminated. A passerby helped push the vehicle to the side of the road. The vehicle was towed to the dealer, where the vehicle was inspected, and the contact was informed that the transmission had failed and needed to be replaced. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The approximate failure mileage was 143,335.

The transmission has exhibited signs of premature failure due to an internal component defect. The only indication was a whining noise when accelerating. This was first noticed around July 2025 when the car had about 78,000 miles on it. The car was later inspected by the Toyota dealer on 08/20/2025 with 79,253 miles on it. The Toyota dealer determined that "the noise being heard was the transmission becoming faulty" and prescribed replacing the transmission "as soon as possible." This is a safety concern if the transmission suddenly fails while driving, but I am not going to wait for that to happen before replacing it.

SUV has a pronounced whine coming from the transmission. This started at approximately 85,000 - 90,000 miles and has progressively gotten louder. The car currently has 96,000 miles on it. As I understand it Toyota has issues multiple technical service bulletin about this exact issue covering the 2017-2018 highlander but my 2019 is not covered even though it has the exact same 8 transmission. I have not taken this to the dealer as I understand it would not be covered under the factory power train warranty which is 5 years or 60,000 miles. I've purchased several Toyota vehicles over multiple decades, but with this issue on a vehicle that is not yet 7 years old I am a bit dissapointed and will not be purchasing any more toyota vehicles. Since this issue is specifically related to the powertrain it is most certainly a SAFETY related issue when this transmission fails.