Other powertrain problem on the 2017 Toyota Highlander
3 crashes 2 injuries 5 of the 36 reports for this failure mention a crash, a fire, an injury or a death. Those are the owner's words on the complaint form, not a verified finding, and one report can mention more than one.
When other powertrain problem gets reported
Owners of the 2017 Toyota Highlander report other powertrain problem at a median of 20,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 15,000 miles and a quarter after 35,000 miles, from 14 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 92,000 miles. It is the 1st most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 10,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 45,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 33,700 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
Reports bunched into a band this tight usually mean the component has a life of its own: it goes at roughly the same mileage regardless of who owns it.
71% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8,800 miles | 13,570 miles | 20,000 miles | 36,250 miles | 42,500 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
Of these reports, 3 a crash and 2 an injury are mentioned. Owners write their own complaints and the agency does not verify them, so read this as what the reports say happened rather than as a confirmed count.
Putting it right typically runs $400–$4,500 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 21 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2004, at a median of 2,500 miles, and latest on the 2002 at 120,000 miles.
By volume the 2021 carries the most reports, with 69; the 2017 has 36. 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.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
Tl* the contact owns a 2017 toyota highlander. While attempting to accelerate from a stop, the vehicle would not drive forward and rolled backwards. The vehicle was towed to the dealer where it was diagnosed that the rear axle shaft support bearing retaining ring failed and caused the axle to separate from the trans axle. The vehicle was repaired. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The failure mileage was 192.
While driving up the I-5 grapevine at 72 MPH the car suddenly slowed without any warning to under 20 MPH. The check engine light turned on and the dash said AWD system disengaged or error or some similar message and to take to the dealer. I was barely able to accelerate to get off the road. I pulled off, turned the car off and back on, and it started running again. I'm lucky I was not rear ended.
As I was turning left at a green arrow across a divided highway, the car stopped moving in the middle of the intersection. There were no warning lights or alarms in advance of the stop, nor were there any crunching or grinding sounds at the time the car stopped. I could tell when I stepped on the accelerator at the time the light turned green that something wasn't right. After the car stopped, I tried to re-start 2x in the intersection, then pushed the car out of the intersection. The lights and electrical came on, but when I put it in gear and hit the accelerator, the engine revved and the rpms went up, but the tires did not engage. Toyota dealership with calls to toyota engineering took 2 days to diagnose it as a transmission " production error" that required a "countermanded" replacement. They have had the car in for service for over 30 days. I was contacted last friday the 12th to be told that the replacement part was in, but have not been contacted to pick up.
Also reported on the 2017 Toyota Highlander
Other engine problem
Other electrical problem
No-start or intermittent start failure
Other brake problem
Other fuel system problem
Other visibility problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 36 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 powertrain problem happen on the 2017 Toyota Highlander?
Across 14 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 20,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 15,000 miles and a quarter after 35,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is other powertrain problem on the 2017 Toyota Highlander?
36 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 1.5 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