2011 TOYOTA HIGHLANDER — Complaint #1864885
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about ENGINE AND ENGINE COOLING:ENGINE:OIL/LUBRICATION: OIL COOLER filed January 11, 2023
NHTSA complaint #1864885 (ODI reference 11501313) concerns a 2011 TOYOTA HIGHLANDER and was filed on January 11, 2023. The owner reports the failure occurred on January 9, 2023. The report was geocoded to South Carolina based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as engine and engine cooling:engine:oil/lubrication: oil cooler, 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 and engine cooling:engine:oil/lubrication: oil cooler 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 2011 TOYOTA HIGHLANDER shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
Pin hole in oil line causing excessive oil leak. Loose oil very quickly. Could cause permanent damage to engine. Had old line replaced by mechanic with a metal line only inspected by my mechanic and there was mention of past recall by my mechanic but it does not show this on your sight. There was no warning lights at all. A coworker noticed excessive oil on the ground when I left work and called me immediately to check oil. Very little left in engine and I could see it coming from under car. Incident happen on 1-9-2023 Had car towed to mechanic to avoid damage to engine. My issue was there a recall at some point ? If other Toyotas are having this issue need to be addressed before cars blow there engines from no oil ! Since no warning lights came on I would have no idea I was losing oil this fast just driving down the road! I only knew because my coworker saw massive spill on concrete at work .
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1864885 |
| ODI Number | 11501313 |
| Date Filed | January 11, 2023 |
| Failure Date | January 9, 2023 |
| VIN | 5TDYK3EH4BS |
Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.
Read our methodology — how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.