2024 Toyota Grand Highlander

There is a serious vibration or bouncing of the hood that is very distracting while driving once the vehicle is moving 40 mph or more. My guess is that the metal is too thin or not well bracketed causing it to flutter or vibrate from airflow over the hood. I also experienced the hood denting in from a strong wind gust that made a very loud bang or pop making me think the hood was about to blow off and had to immediately pull over to examine but nothing seemed to be wrong. It just must have dented in and out again. Seems very dangerous. It flutters every time you drive the vehicle above certain speeds and causes the sunlight to flicker in your face which is very distracting. It is evident with every road test.

The rear portion of the hood, closest to the windshield vibrates or flutters at speeds above 30 MPH. At speeds above 50 MPH the flutter becomes very noticeable and actually reflects sunlight into the driver's field of vision. I had personally been blinded by this for several seconds - a very dangerous situation on a busy interstate highway. Fortunately the vehicle's lane keeping assist kept me in the lane but I otherwise could very easily have swerved into another car or rear-ended a stopped vehicle. I have taken this vehicle to my local dealer and a technician reproduced the problem very easily. I was told by the service manager, however, that this is a normal condition for this vehicle and suggested I contact Toyota.

The entire proximal portion of the hood closest to the windshield vibrates above 50 mph. Windy conditions make this worse. The glare on the hood will vibrate distracting the driver. I have reported this to Toyota and they do not care to acknowledge it as a problem. There are forums of new honors of the Grand Highlander complaining. My dealership could reproduce the problem and said there is no fix.

Hope this email finds you well. I am writing just to give some feedback about my brand new Grand Highlander Platinum. Unfortunately, I have been noticing some issues with the hood (vibrating) at any speed which raised a huge concern about the safety of my family as it seems like the hood is going to fly away from the vehicle (at high speed like 50 mph or more). The formal response received from 2 different dealers is: We just got off the phone with the Toyota technical specialists about the concern with the hood. They have one other case open for the same complaint but are telling us there is no safety concern at this time and to release the vehicle back to you. We did test 2 other Grand Highlanders and they are both doing the same thing. My personal opinion is that due to the lightweight nature of the hood it is susceptible to flex and is showing that movement more obviously because of the black paint’s reflection properties. In my experience, if more of these cases arise, the manufacturer will open an investigation into a possible resolution but at this time we have been instructed to take no action. If you want I can send you some videos about the vibration. As you can see, the answer does not make sense since it is uncomfortable to see how the hood moves while you drive. I think it is important that customers know this defect before investing money in this vehicle. Kind regards, [XXX] INFORMATION REDACTED PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(B)(6)

I wanted to open the hood using the hood support rod. Holding the hood with left hand using right hand grabbed the support rod . It burned my fingers immediately.Looking at the designed it is placed in the center of the hood underside right above engine compartment.It took one week and 3 phone calls to Toyota product liability area. I told him I learn my lesson the hard way that I will never grab it again without a glove. It is that hot I asked him why would they design a bar above the engine compartment which will except all the heat from the engine, I looked in the owners manual and I read it to the Toyota person I contacted and this is what it says and I quote the support rod may be hot after driving the vehicle. Touching the hot support rod may lead to burns or other serious injuries so I told the representative at Toyota they put this in the book knowing that people are going to get burned or drop the hood when their hand gets burned and it’s gonna fall on their head or it’s going to hit their hand. Why would they design something so poorly like this he thanked me for letting him know about it I asked him what will someone be back in touch with me to validate my concern and that they’re looking into it and he said absolutely not he said if there’s any recall, I’ll get notified by mail. Thank you very much is all I got from them