model year

2019 Toyota Highlander reported problems and recalls

Review 473 NHTSA owner complaints, 3 recall campaigns, and the leading reported component categories for the 2019 Toyota Highlander.

Claim-level evidence reviewed Reviewed 8/26/2026

answer

What the official records show

For the 2019 Toyota Highlander, the NHTSA complaint API returned 473 unique owner complaint records across the catalog variants HIGHLANDER when Car Trouble Lab captured this dataset. Those records included 22 reports marked as involving a crash and 1 marked as involving a fire. Injury and death fields summed to 18 injuries and 0 deaths. The NHTSA recalls API returned 3 distinct safety campaigns, including 19V244000, 20V012000, and 20V682000. The captured component evidence profile was POWER TRAIN: 189 tags (40% of unique complaint records), 0 crash-marked, 0 fire-marked, and 0 reported injuries; FUEL/PROPULSION SYSTEM: 86 tags (18% of unique complaint records), 2 crash-marked, 0 fire-marked, and 1 reported injuries; ENGINE: 69 tags (15% of unique complaint records), 3 crash-marked, 0 fire-marked, and 1 reported injuries; ELECTRICAL SYSTEM: 55 tags (12% of unique complaint records), 3 crash-marked, 0 fire-marked, and 3 reported injuries; FUEL SYSTEM: 21 tags (4% of unique complaint records), 0 crash-marked, 0 fire-marked, and 0 reported injuries. The campaign evidence profile was 19V244000 (EQUIPMENT:OTHER:LABELS; received 27/03/2019); 20V012000 (FUEL SYSTEM, GASOLINE:DELIVERY:FUEL PUMP; received 13/01/2020); 20V682000 (FUEL SYSTEM, GASOLINE:DELIVERY:FUEL PUMP; received 04/11/2020). These are reported-record counts, not a measured failure rate and not a diagnosis of any individual vehicle.

SOURCES

custom

How to interpret the pattern

The most frequently assigned complaint component categories in this captured query were POWER TRAIN (189), FUEL/PROPULSION SYSTEM (86), ENGINE (69), ELECTRICAL SYSTEM (55), and FUEL SYSTEM (21). Adjacent captured model years reported 2018: 261 complaints and 5 campaigns. These comparisons are raw record totals, not exposure-adjusted rates. One complaint can carry more than one component tag, so category counts should not be added to reproduce the total complaint count. Too few usable positive mileage values were present to publish a median. NHTSA complaint records are owner-submitted and may be incomplete, duplicated before ODI-number deduplication, or unverified. A high count can also reflect how many vehicles were sold and how long they have been on the road. Use this page to choose inspection questions, not to label every 2019 Toyota Highlander defective.

methodology

What to check next

Start with the categories that repeat most often, then compare the complaint description and warning symptoms with the actual vehicle rather than ordering a part from a category label. Check the full 17-character VIN in NHTSA's official recall lookup because a model-year campaign list cannot tell whether a particular vehicle is included or whether its remedy was completed. Preserve diagnostic trouble codes and freeze-frame data before clearing them, ask for repair invoices, and obtain a qualified inspection when a symptom affects braking, steering, restraint systems, fire risk, or drivability. Car Trouble Lab does not determine whether a vehicle is safe to drive.