AtWhatMileage
Engine · 12 owner reports

Other engine problem on the 2011 Toyota Highlander

Only 7 reports for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.

Reports of this failure 12
With an odometer reading 7
Reports per 1,000 built 0.3 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 29%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 0
Typical repair $300–$4,000
What it means when it happens High
Rank among this year's problems 5th

When other engine problem gets reported

There are 12 reports of other engine problem on the 2011 Toyota Highlander, 7 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.

A part like this is normally expected to survive 95,000 miles. It is the 5th most-reported problem on this model year.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 7 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
— — 117,600 miles — —

Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.

What a percentile can and cannot tell you here

These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.

What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.

Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.

What happens, and what it costs

Putting it right typically runs $300–$4,000 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.

The same failure on other years

The same failure is reported on 22 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2013, at a median of 2,300 miles, and latest on the 2011 at 120,000 miles.

By volume the 2008 carries the most reports, with 46; the 2011 has 12. A mode that appears across most years of a model is usually a design choice rather than a bad batch.

If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.

What owners wrote

Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.

Tl* the contact owns a 2011 toyota highlander hybrid. The contact stated that while approaching a stop sign, the vehicle stalled without warning. The vehicle was taken to the dealer who was unable to diagnose the failure. The manufacturer was not made aware of the problem. The vehicle was not repaired. The VIN was not available. The failure mileage was 15,000 and current mileage was 16,000.

15,000 miles NHTSA complaint 901860 filed 2012-01-25

T-sb-0201-11 from toyota states "some vehicles equipped with 2gr-fe/fxe towing package engines may exhibit an oil seep from the engine oil cooler pipes." this tsb affects toyota and lexus vehicles going back to at least 2008-present. This is a major issue, and I feel this should be handled as a recall instead of a tsb due to the severity of the issue if/when the pipe breaks. I recently elected to have my vehicle repaired on my own just so I wouldn't have to worry about this issue happening to me or my wife, and thus blowing up my highlander's engine causing thousands of dollars in damages. Seems pretty bad that a recall can be issued for floor mats and accelerator issues, but no recall is issued for this issue which can drain the oil from your engine in a minute, blow up your engine, and then possibly wreck your vehicle. Consumer's engines are now being destroyed, and this is showing up in different online forums. I feel that the NHTSA needs to force toyota to replace all of the defective engine oil cooler pipes with the newer metal ones that the tsb addresses. They should also be forced to reimburse all costs to those individuals…

73,682 miles NHTSA complaint 1144790 filed 2015-01-05

The oil cooler hose leaked...lost all oil and oil pressure in less than a few minutes...lucky the engine didn;t blow. There should be a recall on this as it appears it has happened to thousands of people.

150,000 miles NHTSA complaint 1472128 filed 2018-05-30

Also reported on the 2011 Toyota Highlander

Other visibility problem

34 reports median 50k

Other body or interior problem

20 reports median 50k

Other steering problem

19 reports median 62k

Other electrical problem

17 reports median 40k

Liftgate, tailgate or trunk failure

11 reports median 46k

Other powertrain problem

10 reports median 25k

How far this goes

This page is kept out of search results because 12 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.

Complaints are voluntary, so 12 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.

Questions this page answers

At what mileage does other engine problem happen on the 2011 Toyota Highlander?

Across 7 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 120,000 miles. A quarter were filed before — and a quarter after —. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.

How common is other engine problem on the 2011 Toyota Highlander?

12 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.3 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.

What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars

Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed