THE GOOD. The Highlander provides superior ride comfort, a soft and punchy V6 drivetrain and spacious accommodation in the first two rows for individuals.
THE BAD. The third-row room is only enough for tiny children and characteristics are missing from the Entune infotainment scheme.
THE BOTTOM LINE. The three-row crossover of Toyota still has plenty to deliver, but an update is needed.
The Toyota Highlander has been around for the most part since 2014 in showrooms today. Sure, a couple of years ago it got a midcycle update, but it’s still mainly the same old’ Highlander. Toyota’s three-row stalwart has a difficult time standing out against fresher rivals such as the Chevrolet Traverse, Honda Pilot, Subaru Ascent and Volkswagen Atlas.
But that doesn’t imply that the Highlander should be overlooked. In its present generation, Toyota’s mid-size SUV had amazing staying power. Indeed, in 2018, the Highlander had its best-ever sales year, with over 244,000 of them finding homes. It may not be the freshest three-row offering, but I can see for sure why it is appealing.
Save the fresh LED foglights on my Limited-spec test vehicle in 2019 with no design tweaks. Still, the midsize of Toyota wears pretty bland sheet metal and styling. It doesn’t look bad, but there’s definitely not a lot of curb appeal.
The inside runs unchanged like the outside and is free of visual sizzle. Instead, you get a simple and functional design that is simple to work through, with big climatic checks, lots of nooks and crannies in the first and second rows of seats to stash stuff and spacious accommodations for folks.
There is also quite a lot of cargo room at your disposal, with 42 cubic feet of real estate behind the seats of the center captain growing up to almost 83 with them flipping down.
The interior materials are kind of meh in relation to a stable layout. The laughable third-row accommodations are probably the greatest strike against the Highlander inside. Small children will be able to wedge back there, but because of the absence of legroom, adolescents or smaller adults are out of the issue.
The aging tech that lacks features
The Highlander has Toyota’s familiar Entune interface in the middle stack for quarterback infotainment features. It’s a strong system, operationally, with a responsive8-inch touchscreen that switches rapidly between all the distinct menus.
Working through thanks to big, obviously marked icons is intuitive. The entry of destinations into the normal navigation system of the Limited is simple with the completion of route calculations in a flash. Entune also has a nice, but not great, 12-speaker JBL audio setup, Bluetooth, satellite radio, and weather data in real-time.
Unfortunately, there is lacking stuff like Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, and a Wi-Fi hotspot from Entune’s feature menu — stuff that is all predominant among the Highlander’s competitive set. That, along with the screen imagery, which isn’t very new and vibrant, causes the infotainment system to prove its age.
One thing that’s up to snuff is the energy port game of the Highlander, which consists of two 2.1-amp USB ports, a normal USB and two 12-volt outlets that are readily available from the front. On the back of the center console, rear passengers receive another pair of 2.1-amp USBs and a two-prong 120-volt socket. No phone or tablet onboard this Toyota should ever go dead.
For safety, each Highlander receives the Toyota Safety Sense features suite that adds adaptive cruise control, forward collision warning with automatic emergency braking, lane-departure warning with lane-keeping assistance and automatic high beams.
The safety tech list of the Limited is also being bulked up with blind-spot monitoring and rear cross-traffic alert, both of which are useful features.
2019 Toyota Highlander Comfort
While you can purchase four-cylinder and hybrid-powered Highlanders, my tester is fitted with a soft 3.5-liter V6, making 295 horsepower and 263 pound-feet torque stout.
That operates with an automatic gearbox that sends energy to all four wheels, also slick eight-speed. With linear energy delivery and well-timed up-and downshift, the drivetrain combination is refined. The only minor annoyance at tip-in is silent throttle response, but after that, it only goes to make the merging and passing expressway job simple.
The EPA estimates that the V6-powered Highlander will return 20 miles per gallon in the city with an all-wheel drive, 26 mpg on the highway, and 22 mpg in combination.
I’ve seen 20.2 mpg after a week of mixed winter driving. This is not too bad considering the long idle times during cold-morning startups, not to mention my heavier right foot. But on the fuel economy front, the Highlander is falling behind much of its more modern competition.
Comfort is the main game of the Highlander when it comes to handling behavior. The soft suspension tuning is welcome on crummy Michigan roads. The suspension softens blows to make running around the city more than tolerable from frost heaves and potholes. Also fitting the calmer demeanor of the car is the lightly weighted steering with a little play on center.
No, this Toyota isn’t a lot of fun driving, with a body moving under braking and through turns, but it’s not too clumsy. However, it is still very competent and its 19-inch Bridgestone Dueler H / L 422 tires on these broken, snowy roads are fine. If in this segment you want something more lively to wheel around, go to the Honda Pilot or Mazda CX-9. The Highlander is your best bet for those who place ride quality above all else.
Still a solid choice
The test car pictured here by Highlander Limited costs $45,185, including $1,095 for the destination.
That’s not entirely unreasonable, but it’s a slightly more budget-conscious option to grab an XLE model that comes in less than $42,000.
You’re still going to get things like heated seats, blind-spot monitoring, and rear-cross traffic alert, but you’re going to have to live without the cooled front seats of the Limited, the JBL sound system, and blue interior lighting. Hey, three thousand dollars is three thousand dollars.
I fully understand why this old dog still sells as well as it does after a week with the 2019 Toyota Highlander Limited. The inoffensive styling, the punchy V6 drivetrain and the highly comfortable quality of the ride are all things that will surely check for many consumers all the major boxes.
Spruce up the inside and refresh this thing with modern tech, and the Highlander could easily be the best pick in the segment.
Should I Buy The 2019 Toyota Highlander?
(From cars.usnews.com Reviews) Critics’ Rating: 8.3. If you’re shopping for a 3-row SUV, the Highlander certainly worth a look, but be advised that the last row is fairly tiny. Passengers in the first two rows will travel comfortably with crowd-pleasing facilities including five USB ports, automatic climate control tri-zone, and Driver Easy Speak accessible, which amplifies the driver’s voice for rear-seat travelers.
That said, in this class, there are many competitors who are just as attractive as the Highlander. This list involves the extremely ranked Santa Fe Hyundai, which comes in two- and three-row versions, as well as the all-new Ascent Subaru.
