NHTSA Complaint #11428198 — 2019 TOYOTA HIGHLANDER

Problems: 1) Check Engine Light lit up. 2) "Hybrid System Malfunction" warning on heads-up display. 3) "Pre-Collision System Failure" warning on Heads-Up Display. 4) Gasoline engine stalls after an intentional deceleration and is unable to come back up to speed. First Event: On July 4th, my wife and I were driving on an interstate highway. We entered an exit ramp interchange to merge onto another highway and when trying to accelerate the car suddenly became sluggish, and gave messages for problems 1), 2), and 4) stated above. Problem 3) did not occur during this event. Messages stated to pull over in a safe location. We parked on the shoulder and immediately shut the car off, waited 5 minutes and then started the car again. We were able to drive to the next off-ramp to a city street (about 100 yards) before the engine started becoming sluggish again and lurching, error messages remained throughout the event. OBD codes stated simply "faulty engine" on a car with 16,000 miles. Dealership was unable to find a cause, but did find a code for ignition failure. They checked some things but did not do any repairs, and were unable to replicate the issue as it seemed to have cleared. Diagnosis was "vapor-lock" and no explanation for why. Second Event: On August 6th, my wife was driving the vehicle to visit family, when pulling onto an exit ramp, was unable to accelerate again afterwards. All the same warnings popped up, but this time also had problem 3). Engine stalled when warnings appeared and did the same sluggish lurching. After pulling off in a safe area, Shut the car off and tried to restart 4 times, warning did not clear. Gasoline Engine does not operate when pedal is pressed. Shut the car down for 2 hours and tried to restart afterwards, warnings still present, engine now runs when pedal is pressed, but stalls when idle. Shutdown for another hour while waiting for a tow, warnings still present, still stalls when idle. Waiting on callback from dealership.