2024 Toyota Grand Highlander

On high-temperature days, when the A/C is running at full capacity, the vehicle occasionally fails to accelerate from a stop. This issue persists even after applying the recommended ECM update. The lack of reliable acceleration poses a significant safety risk, particularly when turning across oncoming traffic or entering a busy street. This situation can leave the vehicle stalled in the path of approaching vehicles, increasing the likelihood of an accident.

There has been a recall impacting the safety of driving this vehicle (air bag related) and the dealer and manufacturer have provided no ETA on when there will be a fix for this or when the vehicle will be safe again to transport our children. In our view we should be refunded in full for this vehicle purchase given the ongoing safety issue resulting in us being unable to drive the vehicle.

When accelerating from a complete stop, there will occasionally be significant hesitation in the car actually accelerating. For example, I was at a stop sign then attempted to make a left turn when there was a break in the oncoming traffic. My car would not accelerate, almost as if it shut off. It then begins to accelerate. On another instance, I was at a stop sign and when I had the right of way, I stepped on the gas pedal but the car would not accelerate until roughly 10mph, at which time the acceleration kicked in. After this happened a few times, and after reading about it in social media groups, I brought the issue to the attention of the dealership. At the time of service, they were able to replicate the issue and performed a software update (T-SB-0017-24). That seemed to help but only for a few days, then the issue happened again - twice in the same afternoon. I took the car back, only to be told the issue could now not be replicated and that there was no additional fix. It happened again this morning. It is only a matter of time before I get broadsided because my car doesn't move through a turn or the intersection because it just rolls until the acceleration kicks in. I'm concerned about getting rear ended when the car doesn't move at the appropriate speed when either the light changes or from a stop at a stop sign. There are no warning lamps that appear or any sort of system malfunction notices.

Our vehicle is less than 2 months old, and it had less than 5,000 miles before highway debris (gravel) chipped and cracked the windshield on two separate occasions. I have never had a chip or crack caused by rocks before, and my previous vehicles have been hit plenty of times. Talking to people that own the Lexus equivalent of my Grand Highlander (Lexus TX), they have similar experiences with what appears to be very weak windshields. I will have to replace the windshield.

- Vehicle intermittently will not respond or will barely respond when accelerator is depressed from a complete stop or near (rolling) stop. I have noticed this issue mainly when A/C is on high and during hot temperatures. I reside in the Phoenix, AZ area where high temperatures have been ranging around 110-115. - This poses a safety risk when attempting to pull out onto a busy road, either turning left or right. If the gas pedal fails to respond, this could lead to a serious crash. - This issue has arisen following a recent software update that Toyota performed (under service bulletin TSB-0017-24). This update was done to correct a different issue (shifting hesitation between gears when accelerating from 0-40mph), however it seems to have negatively affected the response of the vehicle when starting up from a stop. I have not yet taken my vehicle back to Toyota with this issue, but MANY owners of the HybridMAX are experiencing this same issue as the weather temperatures have peaked. - No warning lights appear when this occurs. The problem arose shortly after I had a software update done at the dealer on June 14, 2024.