Toyota suv

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Used cars can be a great deal if you do your homework. I normally buy 1 owner, dealer maintained and normally owned by the elderly vehicles.

We did buy a new RAV-4 a couple weeks ago. Had a really good deal on a used Highlander a couple months ago. Passed on it as it was too big (and had crap MPG's) for most of our family's needs. We have a truck for the big stuff and have a Lexus RX-350 (also crap MPG's), A Mazda CX-5 and a few sedans.

We live in an area with hilly terrain and the back roads aren't really maintained. In the truck and SUV's, the ride is pretty rough.
 
zoomzoom said:
Used cars can be a great deal if you do your homework. I normally buy 1 owner, dealer maintained and normally owned by the elderly vehicles.

We did buy a new RAV-4 a couple weeks ago. Had a really good deal on a used Highlander a couple months ago. Passed on it as it was too big (and had crap MPG's) for most of our family's needs. We have a truck for the big stuff and have a Lexus RX-350 (also crap MPG's), A Mazda CX-5 and a few sedans.

We live in an area with hilly terrain and the back roads aren't really maintained. In the truck and SUV's, the ride is pretty rough.
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The mpg is a really important issue for a lot of people. Almost 100% of my driving is around town & our town is not even 10 miles across in most places. And I rarely make trips. So the millage doesn't matter to me. If I wanted I could drive on one tank of gas for a couple of months with planning. So my Highlander is perfect for me. Right now I've got a wheelchair strapped down in the back & when I picked up my wife from the airport there was still room for her luggage back there.

I'll add this but it may not apply where other are. We are in a town of 100,000 & have lot's of car dealers. Nobody wanted to deal on a new car. Toyota shocked me because they came down $6,000 on the internet advertised price. Great deal & Great car!
 
Spikedriver said:
I get that. The 6 is a well proven engine. I bet Toyota's turbo 4 will hold up just as well though. It seems that Toyota likes to get the bugs worked out before they release new engines and transmissions...
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Agreed.
I love their 6-cyl engines. Damn near bulletproof. I have that engine in a 23 year-old Avalon and a newer Lexus RX-350. Except for a starter in the Avalon at age 22, I haven't had a single issue.

I'm in vehicle buying spree right now, especially if I want Toyota since most of their fleet is going hybrid starting next year. Bought a new RAV-4 a few weeks ago, a Mazda CX-5 a couple months ago. Have been thinking about a new Camry but I want the V6. Probably just buy another SUV (of some brand...).
 
zoomzoom said:
Agreed.
I love their 6-cyl engines. Damn near bulletproof. I have that engine in a 23 year-old Avalon and a newer Lexus RX-350. Except for a starter in the Avalon at age 22, I haven't had a single issue.

I'm in vehicle buying spree right now, especially if I want Toyota since most of their fleet is going hybrid starting next year. Bought a new RAV-4 a few weeks ago, a Mazda CX-5 a couple months ago. Have been thinking about a new Camry but I want the V6. Probably just buy another SUV (of some brand...).
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I'm actually thinking about a Toyota hybrid. They've proved to be so damn reliable that it almost doesn't make sense to get the regular gas ones.

I do like Mazda too. I had a Mazda6 sedan with a 6 speed manual transmission. Best handling car I ever owned, but not very comfortable for long trips. The CX5 is on my short list, as they have shown to be very reliable too.
 
The current gen Grand Highlander is available in 3 different powertrains.
ICE-only
RAV4/Prius style hybrid tuned for mpg, and it delivers. ROI vs the ICE is very short, making this the value option.
Tundra-style hybrid tuned for power. Much more expensive and virtually no mpg improvement over the ICE. No sure the grunt is worth the premium in this chassis.

edit: I lied. The Grand Highlander has these 3 available options. The regular highlander only has the ICE and mpg-tuned hybrid powertrain
 
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Spikedriver said:
I'm actually thinking about a Toyota hybrid. They've proved to be so damn reliable that it almost doesn't make sense to get the regular gas ones.
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To get the benefit of the hybrid, you need to drive it more than we actually do. I did the math a few weeks ago (and going from memory here), if you drive less than about 12-15,000 miles per year, the ICE is a better financial decision.
 
About 2 & a half years ago my neighbors bought one of those EV combo Rav4's. When I got my Highlander they came over to look at it. They said that it was to expensive for me. He repairs windmills so I guess the EV part was important to him (they also installed solar panels on their house. Anyway fast forward to 2 days ago & they drove in with a Highlander. I bet it had something to do with them having twins about a year after they bought the Rav4. Next time the Highlander they got is out I'm going to find out if it's a combo like the car they traded off. I'm betting it isn't.

Oh & shortly after they put up the solar panels on their house we had a hail & they had to replace all of them. Being green can sure cost you.
 
I don't give two shits about gas mileage. I care only about performance, HP, torque, ground clearance and towing capacity. I use my vehicles everyday for what they were designed for. All of our vehicles are 4 wheel drive, not this misleading all wheel drive BS.
 
The only 2 things that I can say about a Toyota Highlander.
1. A mechanic that I watch on line (U-Tube) has said that it's one of the few cars that you can maybe drive for 500,000 miles.
2. I've had my Highlander now going on the about 3.5 years & I love it. If I live long enough to have to replace it I'll replace it with another Toyota because of how much I love this car. On a scale of 1 to 100 I'd rate it about 97. I don't like how slow the computer is to load nor seeing warning sign on the screen for as long as they show up. Driving, it gets about 20 mpg around town & 22 on the highway driving over 75 mph. I love it, I love it!
 
We have a Highlander and love it. It's not new and it has a lot of miles but it still runs perfectly and has never had maintenance problems. We will get another Highlander when it's time to put this one out to pasture..... but not until it's time.
 
Highlanders, 4 Runners, Camry, Corolla, Tundra...we (including my kids and son in law) have never worn out a Toyota. We HAVE worn out Fords, Nissans etc. before going all Toyota. My wife and daughter put a LOT of miles on their Toyotas. Occasionally (rarely, actually) we either trade them in or sell them to buy a new one after the warranty is over, just to get something new and shiny.
I am going to keep my 2006 Tundra until the wheels fall off. I probably will not live that long though. Work trucks don't need to be new and shiny. I prefer my old beat up one for work and play. You can't tell new dings and scratches from old dings and scratches.
 
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From my prospective and experience in the auto repair business is that Toyota vehicles are very reliable and easy to maintain. Most come into my shop for mostly routine stuff like oil changes,tires, brakes suspension and alignment. A lot of them have over 100k but still run like a champ. Can't go wrong with a Toyota.
 
The last Nissan I had didn't quite make it to 100k. The engine fell apart inside somewhere. Sounded like a bucket of nuts and bolts turning over inside. I took it to my mechanic and he told me to sell it. IMMEDIATELY.
My wife had a Expedition with one of those engines that spit spark plugs. It didn't get much past 100K before the engine was toast.
 
Spikedriver said:
Whether it's body on frame or unibody construction, it's still a damn nice vehicle and trusted for quality and reliability. If I had $50k lying around, I'd have one in my driveway...
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I bought our Highlander 3 years ago (prices are different now I guess) & it's mid level, not the cheap one & not the expensive one. It took me about a week dealing with them but I paid $38,200. I thought that was a GREAT DEAL. What shocked me is that the other car dealers in town seemed to want to either rip you off or would out & out lie to you when the truth would have been better. The service department of our GM dealer, where we bought out last new car actually told me 2 outright lies that were easily disproved. Lie to me & I don't come back.
 
Spikedriver said:
@old tex what year is your Highlander? If my Tacoma is totalled, I'll be looking really hard at a 2019-2022 Highlander XLE. (I drive for 10-12 hours fairly often, and I really need seats with adjustable lumbar support. The XLE is the cheapest version that has that.)
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It's a 2021. I think that I have almost 9,000 miles on it, that's why I don't care about gas mileage or for that matter the price of gas. If I had it all to do over again I would have happily paid more for it, I like it that much.
 
Aklogcabin said:
I've researched, found information that suggests that the timing chain needs replacing between 80-100 thousand miles. Anyone else ever heard this
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We have a neighbor that bought a Highlander with about 275,000 ran and looked great, but he didn't check on Car Fax for the service records and ended up with the timing belt breaking. He pulled the engine and told me he was going to have it rebuilt, I told him that everything looked very good but he went ahead and had the engine rebuilt, he now has well over 300,000 miles on the Highlander. After he went through all this, I decided to check on our 2005 Sienna which has the same 3.3 liter engine as he has and I found no record of a timing belt change and we had over 176,000 miles on our van. We took the van into our local Toyota dealership and had them install a new water pump and timing belt, they told me that the belt was in need of replacing, we now have over 206,600 miles on the van, we are totally sold on the quality of Toyota's. By the way, newer Highlanders have a 3.5 liter engine with a timing chain. All I can say is, if the Toyota you're looking at has high mileage, have the dealer do a Car Fax check, if it's been well taken care of, I wouldn't be afraid of buying a high mileage Toyota, we bought a 2008 Tundra TRD that has around 203300+ miles on it and it starts, runs and shifts like a new vehicle, my wife doesn't care for the load dual exhaust but it fits my bucket list desire of wanting a V-8 powered vehicle before I die, although I kind of wanted a Mustang GT, however, looking at the price of them, the Tundra will do fine as it only cost us $10,000. If you think that's too much, I don't think so as good used Tundra's are hard to come by around here.
 
I will add that there are a few things that I'm unhappy with on my Highlander. I hate the time it takes for the computer to start. It's not that long but when I get in a car I want to go then, not 20 seconds later. I don't like the adaptive cruise control but that's on a lot of cars now days. And the other thing, & I find this surprising is the time that it takes for them to fix recalls. There was a recall on my Highlander about a year ago for the front bumper falling off. Still no fix on that one. Now there's also a recall on the front passenger air bag & still no fix for that.
 
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