I have a 2006 Highlander Hybrid with 97000 miles. I live in fear that any odd sound or bump could be the end. My inverter has not failed YET but I would still like to help in starting some legal action .
Does anyone know what causes the failure? What percentage of 2006 Toyota hybrids inverters have failed?

 

1063main: Have you checked if your VIN number falls in the group before the production split? As for the cause, I have heard several theories, but have no way to verify. Someone has been told by their mechanic that the inverter used on the earlier 2006 HH's was the same as that of the smaller Prius, and that it may not be adequate for the larger HH vehicle. Someone else postulates that the problem may be similar to the one causing the Prius older models to be recalled (quietly) to have a pump fixed that apparently gets air bubbles in it and causes the inverter to fail. How much of this is true I don't know, but this is what I've heard. Would love to hear from any others on this forum as to their hypothesis. Also, you may want to check out all these discussion forums, they all deal with this identical issue...there are discussions about possible cause...as well as other usedful info in the event your inverter fails...and you have to fork out $6700 like I just did (yes, I'm still bitter...).

https://www.greenhybrid.com/discuss/...failure-21426/

https://www.greenhybrid.com/discuss/...31/#post221149

http://townhall-talk.edmunds.com/WebX?229@@.f1dfe1e/52

 

I have now offically joined the ranks of "my-highlander-hybrid-inverter-system-failed". My truck stopped without notice on a state highway (at 148,000 miles). When my mechanic quoted almost $10,000 for repair i contacted dealer in regards to CA extended warranty coverage and was told the inverter is only covered to 100,000 miles - the 150,000 extension only applies to hybrid batteries - COME ON!!!

I will be the 23rd person to complain of inverter failure on this thread alone - I counted 9 complaints on "my car stats" (from NHTSA records). It's obvious Toyota knew the 2006 part was inadequate, since they redesigned it in 07 - what will it take for them to "take care of us"? If not an official recall - how about just a technical service bulletin that will let dealers get reimbursed by Toyota for fixing our Highlanders at no cost to us?

 

whoooooeeee! Look what i just found on Temecula Calendar.com... so toyota is recalling prius inverters - but not our highlanders? ouch- BIG MISTAKE toyota!

Thursday, 20 January 2011




TOYOTA DEATH TRAP TAPS OUT QUIETLY – BREAKING NEWS SCOOP Written by PT Rothschild Tuesday, 04 January 2011 23:34
ONLY 650,000 HYBRIDS RECALLED
ORANGE COUNTY, CA – With the silence of a ‘soft’ opening, Toyota USA has been quietly recalling their first generation hybrid Prius due to a coolant pump glitch that could cause the top-selling hybrid to overheat and lose power. Normally a recall problem for Toyota isn’t really news anymore. Since November 2009, Toyota has recalled about 14 million vehicles worldwide, including about 11 million in the United States, but this latest recall stands out for its callous approach to make Highlander Hybrid model owners who have experienced the same problems pay for their own repairs. Here’s where the rubber meets the road in this exclusive scoop about customer discrimination from a company with the claimed arrogance of advertising expenditures at $1 million per hour on safety FYI.
For Prius model owners Toyota Motor Corp issued the November 29, 2010 statement from Japan, (that it) “will pay to fix about 650,000 Prius models worldwide for a coolant pump glitch that could cause the top-selling hybrid to overheat and lose power”, the automaker said. The repair campaign covers Prius cars for the model years 2004* to 2007. The bulk of the cars, or 378,000 units, are in the United States. The Japanese automaker said it had not received any reports of accidents or injuries from problems with the pump, which circulates coolant for the hybrid system.
The SUV problem starts like this: “I was on highway and suddenly my ‘06 Highlander Hybrid stalled and I saw the message as "Hybrid failed" and "VCF failed”. Just as I accelerated without the car feeling weird at all, warning of "Hybrid Failure go to service" popped up on display. Thankfully, just in time for me to avoid the freeway.”
The initial news of these sudden ‘stall outs’ started appearing about six months ago in early June 2010 via the chat room forum circuit. The popular Toyota model, which was produced starting in July 2005 as a 2006 model, priced out on average at $40,000 brand new. People who got extended warranties are covered for towing and repairs but the reason for the sudden power stalling wasn’t very evident at first. The dealers treated the power failure as routine well under the "mean time between failure" (mbtf). Mbtf is the point when half of the units would be expected to stop working as required. No evidence was shown to be collecting data on this malfunction nor has there been any warnings issued to Highlander Hybrid owners through newsletters to dealers or loyal customers as to this potentially deadly defect as of press time.
Power inverter or hybrid computer.
For Highlander owners without such an extended warranty and over the 100,000 mile mark, the story was get it towed to the local dealer and after three days ($365) they diagnosed that the hybrid computer was dead. The service guys then told them it would cost $11,000 dollars to repair this issue or to others the internal failure of the hybrid inverter would be $9K+ to fix. On models with as few as 111K miles but serviced regularly, Toyota's final say was that the car had been driven longer than the life of the part. Toyota Customer Care after several conversations would offer $1000 toward the repair or a new Toyota. The dealership might offer 10% off the repair bill also. By the middle of June 2010, a firestorm over the Highlander Hybrid being a death trap waiting to happen on some thruway was raging online. On June 30th a strange thing happened for one man on the East Coast.
His purchasing dealer stepped up to help in his situation, bringing the $9,000 repair down to $1200, partially because they wanted to please their loyal customer and partially because he’d been up and down the food chain for the dealership and Mid-Atlantic Toyota based out of Glen Burnie, MD. Upon checking that the inverter replacement had a new part number and actually said New and Improved in the Toyota service system, the resourceful Highlander owner discovered the VIN break for the change from the defective inverter to the new part in the automotive manufacturing process. Before the break you may experience total power failure, engine, steering and brakes. After the break the new part does not have any failures that have been reported as of press time, but remember, this is a breaking story.
Toyota 06 Highlander Hybrid 2wd - Ending in 60009725*
Toyota 06 Highlander Hybrid 4wd - Ending in 60019910*
Lexus 06 Rx 400h 2wd - Ending in 60002207*
Lexus 06 Rx 400h 4wd - Ending in 60036526* - (mid 2007 service bulletin in their system.)
“I had complete loss of power as I was making a left hand turn into two lanes of traffic; I had plenty of time to clear the two lanes, at least with power. The car just died and I coasted to the other side. Luckily the sports car coming toward me swerved out of the way to avoid me. I saw my children's (age 4 and 2) lives flash in front of my eyes as we were almost t-boned by the sports car going 45 miles an hour or more.” – Highlander Hybrid owner
By October 2010 the alarm had gone out to owners about the Toyota Highlander being a potential deathtrap, especially for people who drive the freeway/expressway systems and have kids. There was talk of getting lawyers involved to force a Toyota recall over the issue. It was thought the Nissan recall of 2.1 million late models that stall/die while driving and cannot be restarted could be a sign that Toyota is next to recall. The Nissan recall is for car years 2004, 2005, and 2006. I am curious to see if there is any connection to the parts manufacturer and suppliers of the electronics for Hybrid ECU failure. The BMW fuel pump causing stalling and loss of power was quick on their recall.
The persistent east coaster also kept calling the Toyota regional rep until they finally took his call but they threatened to take back their original contribution of $2000 (out of $9000) if he continued to act in "bad faith" by insisting on statistics concerning Highlander '06 inverter failures. They would say nothing other than, "we have no knowledge of a problem with that vehicle". I think the dual pressure of pitting the dealership against Toyota helped in his situation.
In the Nov 29 news release Toyota said “the design of the electric water pump let air bubbles enter the system, slowing coolant circulation and allowing the hybrid's components to heat up. The heating up of the components could trigger a warning light. If left unattended, the Prius could overheat and drop into a "fail-safe" mode where engine power would be reduced.”
Toyota said it would begin notifying owners of the Prius repair campaign in the United States in early December. The automaker has used a different pump design on the Prius hybrid since that time and uses a different type of pump for other hybrids, Toyota spokesman John Hanson said. Toyota will cover the cost of the repairs, including more than $100 in labor for each Prius fixed at a U.S. dealership.
By this time a few other east coast HH owners have gotten repair replacement parts with paying only the labor costs of about $900. Toyota parts told the dealers the cost for an inverter is $500 and the Power Converter is $4800 with a new battery. The big battery. The lucky owners who accomplished this feat did it by requesting every name up the food chain and threatening legal recourse. Highlander owners on the West Coast have met hostile resistance to finding names up the company links. Regional manager Reginald Haywood (at corporate) had no interest in discussing any of this and said that Toyota "is not responsible for anything outside of the warranty coverage".
Meanwhile repair costs have been listed as low as $7,900 but many have been reported up to $14.000, with Austin, TX, being the latest as of December 1, 2010. On Dec 2 an irritated Highlander customer wrote a letter to the Toyota VP cc'ing all the way to the top--to Shinichi Sasaki in Japan. And Toyota has known all along, since 2006 that they are using an inferior inverter part, prior to the production split*. At present, a coalition of California Highlander owners are seeking a class action suit to force Toyota to recall/fix/buy-back all the affected hybrids, not just the Prius, before there is a tragedy involving a family with a stalled Toyota Highlander somewhere on the freeway.
Report your Highlander issues to the FTC (877)382-4357 and your state's Attorney General. Report your inverter failure to the NHTSA (888)327-4236.

 

Keep the pressure on to have a full recall issued for the defective '06 HH
inverters!

--------------------------------------------------------------------
February 23, 2011
by Ken Thomas, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The government has opened a preliminary investigation into reports of stalling engines in more than 40,000 Toyota Highlander hybrids.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said on its website it had received 32 complaints alleging stalling engines in Highlander hybrids from the 2006 model year. The probe involves 43,491 hybrids and was opened last week.
There have been no crashes or injuries reported. Defect investigations can sometimes lead to vehicle recalls.
Toyota has recalled more than 12 million vehicles globally over safety problems since 2009, but U.S. regulators said earlier this month that electronic flaws were not to blame for reports of sudden, unintended acceleration.
The new investigation involves reports of Highlanders stalling at speeds of 40 miles per hour or more. Some drivers reported the vehicle could not be restarted or was towed to the dealership. Nearly all of the reports were received within the past year.
Toyota said it would fully cooperate with the review.
The preliminary investigation will assess the scope, frequency and potential safety problems connected to the alleged safety defect.

 

Do you think we can ever get our money back on these repairs? And what about all the people who ditched their cars at a loss?

 

It is deeply disturbing to hear of the dangers posed to all drivers by the inverter failure issues in the 06 HH, not to mention the severe financial burden placed on those affected by Toyota's irresponsible behavior. I am the owner of an 06 HH that falls within 50 numbers outside of the VIN break. Even though that is of some comfort, the car now has nearly 100,000 miles and I am still concerned and feel very nervous about my myself and my kids driving it. If Toyota does recall the cars for repairs, how long does it generally take from the time the investigation is launched? Is it wise to extend the warranty past 100,000 miles?

Needing a second car, we were planning to buy a 11 HH -- but now am not sure about moving ahead. Maybe a RAV4 instead, although we love the idea of hybrids and have had a good experience with the '06. Any advice would be greatly appreciated -- and thanks to all for sharing their experiences!

 

What has been happening on this subject? I found the forum because I was looking at buying a 2006 Highlander Hybrid, but started researching and found all the buzz about trouble with the inverter. We have called the dealer, and the TSB relevant to the issue has NOT been performed. Right now we're gonna back away from it, rather than take a risk of catastrophic failure at a bad time, without warning.

Thanks
Chuk
Cary, NC

 

It's only a VERY few and limited # of '06's that were affected. We have a later model '06 and have had no problems. In fact most people have not had any issues. So, check the VIN # against the ones that had issues.

Not certain what you are trying to reference regarding a TSB. There is a problem with the inverters from the earlier production units but I don't think there is any "formal" TSB so it doesn't surprise me that your dealer would not know anything about it.

 

Has ANYONE, EVER had the inverter fail on a HiHy whose VIN # lands OUTSIDE the affected units? So far, I have not heard of a single one and I am registered and frequent about 5 of these Hybrid sites.