NHTSA Complaint #11552914 — 2017 TOYOTA HIGHLANDER

About two weeks prior to the transmission failing, I started hearing a high-pitched whining coming from the transmission, difficulty shifting, and lurching forward when engaging the gear. On the evening of October 4th, my wife was driving at 65 mph on a busy freeway in Atlanta when the vehicle lost acceleration. She was nearly hit while stopped on the freeway. Fortunately, kind motorists got out of their cars and pushed her to the side of the road. The car was towed to a Toyota service shop, and we were advised they could not do the repairs. The mechanic stated it was a known internal Toyota issue. I did some research online and found hundreds of posts from Highlander owners of 2017-18 vehicles complaining about issues with the transmission failing. I found Toyota Customer Support Bulletin POL [XXX] dated 4/18/2019, REPAIR COVERAGE FOR UA80 TRANSMISSION ON CERTAIN 2017-2018 MY SIENNA AND CERTAIN 2017-2018 MY HIGHLANDER VEHICLES. The mechanic said the failure code with a failed transaxle and all the symptoms my vehicle experienced were consistent with the bulletin. My time period for the bulletin was for cars produced from November 2016 to December 2017. My vehicle’s manufacturing date was 12/8/2016. Toyota claims my vehicle although produced during this time was not impacted. It is my belief that Toyota was aware of multiple failures on UA80 transmissions on vehicles produced from 2016 to 2020 and deliberately identified a smaller number to avoid a recall. INFORMATION REDACTED PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(B)(6)