2021 TOYOTA HIGHLANDER — Complaint #2176446
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about POWER TRAIN filed February 13, 2026
NHTSA complaint #2176446 (ODI reference 11717730) concerns a 2021 TOYOTA HIGHLANDER and was filed on February 13, 2026. The owner reports the failure occurred on December 31, 1969. The report was geocoded to Virginia based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as power train, 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 power train 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 2021 TOYOTA HIGHLANDER shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
2021 toyota highlander AWD limited - Car started making a whirling (whirring, whining) noise upon acceleration. It ramps up as accelerating. There are no warning lights showing. It stops when you take foot off of gas. Problem had been confirmed by 2 toyota dealers as needing a new transmission. One said it was in last gear, the other simply said noise was coming from the transmission and based on the NSB in 2021 it was transmission so would need to be replaced. One was $9700+, the other was $8600+. Went back and forth with Toyota to see if they would provide any help. They wonât cover any of the cost. Husband has a 2019 toyota highlander XLE making the same exact noise. Havenât taken it yet for diagnostics
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 2176446 |
| ODI Number | 11717730 |
| Date Filed | February 13, 2026 |
| Failure Date | December 31, 1969 |
| VIN | 5TDDZRBH1MS |
Similar POWER TRAIN Complaints for 2021 TOYOTA HIGHLANDER
The contact owns a 2021 Toyota Highlander. The contact stated that while driving at an undisclosed speed, there was an abnormal whining sound coming from the transmission. The contact was concerned ab
I am reaching out regarding our 2021 Toyota Highlander which currently has $65 K miles and is just out of warranty. Recently we noticed a wining noise during acceleration. We took the vehicle to the
I purchased my brand new Highlander on January 31, 2021 and was told today that I need a transmission replacement. My vehicle started about two month ago with a whining sound while accelerating. My
Known transmission failure.whining noise when accelerating. T-SB-0008-21
The transmission in my 2021 Toyota Highlander began making a loud whining/whirring noise that increases with vehicle speed. The vehicle was inspected by a Toyota dealership, and I was told the transmi
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.