2008 TOYOTA HIGHLANDER — Complaint #967801
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about SEAT BELTS:REAR/OTHER filed March 12, 2013
NHTSA complaint #967801 (ODI reference 10502901) concerns a 2008 TOYOTA HIGHLANDER and was filed on March 12, 2013. The owner reports the failure occurred on July 11, 2011. The report was geocoded to Connecticut based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as seat belts:rear/other, 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 seat belts:rear/other 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 2008 TOYOTA HIGHLANDER shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
2008 TOYOTA HIGHLANDER. ATTORNEY REPRESENTING CONSUMER WRITES IN REGARDS TO SEAT BELT MALFUNCTION AND REQUESTS AN INVESTIGATION AND REIMBURSEMENT. *SMD AS THE CONSUMER WAS DRIVING ON THE HIGHWAY, HER SON WAS SECURED IN HIS CAR SEAT, PLAYING QUIETLY WITH THE ATTACHED SEAT BELT. AT THE POINT, THE SEAT BELT WRAPPED AROUND HIS NECK. THE CONSUMER PULLED OVER AND ATTEMPTED TO FREE HER SON FROM CHOKING, SHE WAS UNABLE TO DO SO, ALTHOUGH LOOSENING THE BELT SUFFICIENTLY ALLOWED HIM TO BREATH. FIRST RESPONDERS HAD DIFFICULTY REMOVING THE BELT, FINALLY THEY HAD TO CUT THE SEAT BELT TO PERMIT HER SON TO BE TAKEN OUT OF THE SEAT.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 967801 |
| ODI Number | 10502901 |
| Date Filed | March 12, 2013 |
| Failure Date | July 11, 2011 |
| VIN | JTEES42A682 |
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.