2012 TOYOTA HIGHLANDER — Complaint #1557917
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NHTSA Complaint about ENGINE filed April 15, 2019
NHTSA complaint #1557917 (ODI reference 11196195) concerns a 2012 TOYOTA HIGHLANDER and was filed on April 15, 2019. The owner reports the failure occurred on April 5, 2019. The vehicle had 86,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Virginia based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as engine, one of NHTSA's standardized taxonomy codes used to group defect patterns across make, model, and year.
The filer flagged the following severity indicators: crash: no, fire: no, injuries: 0, fatalities: 0. No crash, fire, or fatality was associated with this report, which places it in the early-warning stream rather than the priority-review stream. Because a VIN was supplied, this complaint is tied to a specific vehicle and not just a model-year cohort.
Individual complaints are consumer-submitted and unverified by NHTSA engineers — the agency's role at this stage is to collect, index, and make them searchable. What matters for federal action is the pattern: when many owners of the same TOYOTA HIGHLANDER cohort independently describe similar engine failures, defect investigators have grounds to open a PE and request manufacturer data. Related filings for the same vehicle and component appear below, and the detail page for the full 2012 TOYOTA HIGHLANDER shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
WITH 1000 MILES LEFT ON AN OIL CHANGE OR SO OUR CAR WOULD RANDOMLY STALL WHEN YOU MAKE CERTAIN TURNS. OCCAISIOANLLY THE OIL LIGHT WOULD POP ONE WHEN IT WOULD STALL. I CHECKED THE DIPSTICK AND YOU COULD NOT SEE ANYTHING ON IT. I ADDED OIL AND TOOK IT INTO DEALER. THEY ARE DOING A CONSUMPTION TEST TO SEE HOW MUCH WE LOSE IN 1000 MILES. THIS VEHICLE ONLY HAS 86,000 MILES ON IT. WE HAVE NO LEAKS AND NO VISIBLE SMOKE COMING OUT OF EXHAUST. THIS HAS ME WORRIED OF SIMILIAR PROBLEMS THEY HAD WITH ONE OF THERE OTHER 4CYL ENGINES.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1557917 |
| ODI Number | 11196195 |
| Date Filed | April 15, 2019 |
| Failure Date | April 5, 2019 |
| VIN | 5TDZA3EH1CS |
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Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.
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