Gadgetory

bigger is better than the 2014 Toyota Highlander certainly improves over previous versions let's get in this third generation Toyota Highlander and check attack and this is the 2014 Toyota Highlander it's grown about half a foot from its first generation in 2000 this is actually the third generation vehicle just new for 2014 Toyota is added a lot of its truck like styling features for this 2014 model in front here we have these really prominent headlights and we have this grille with these really strong louvers along here these are things you'll also see on cars like the Toyota 4runner which we just reviewed recently which is more of an aggressive truck like thing this is still more of a crossover but we do have these contours along the side that lead up and we've got this two-tone roof rail here the silver roof rail I don't particularly like it and we come out to the rear and we have these really bulbous taillights these sort of stick out of the back here this is sort of another twin a signature design feature in the cabin here to put a lot of convenience features in the Highlander first of all we got this console here and if I pop open these slots for it here it goes way down I can put laptops in here basketballs or who knows what else then I got the shifter up front here for the 6-speed automatic transmission that's one choice there's no other transmission you can get we got a reverse camera on the screen here with some distance lines but Noah trajectory if I spin the wheel nothing happens on there and they can throw it over to sport here holds the lower gears a little more and it's also got a manual shift mode which doesn't make a lot of difference in a car like this up in front of here I've got my all-wheel drive controls I've got a button that says snow and that will actually detune some of the torque at the wheels you're less likely to put a lot of twist at the wheels and slip in the snow there's a button says DAC that's a downhill assist control well that's a it's a very slow maneuver only for really slippery hills and then also we have a button that shows the wheels set a little X in the middle that's your diff lock the diff lock will actually ensure that you have power at all wheels use that in a situation that if you're an eyesore stuck in some mud puddle or something like that and wheels are spinning so whichever one can get grip will hopefully pull you out of that situation but now let's go up to the head unit here this is a completely new head unit for Toyota so we have a row of buttons across each side here these are soft touch buttons actually got about says home we go here and we get a nice screen that shows our map the what current weather and whatever audio we've got plane we go to our apps button here now this is kind of a neat thing this is what cars are going towards Chevy MyLink as this to all the buttons are kind of the same shape for navigation audio phone messages eco will show you how the cars perform and we got a traffic button Detroit I can keep on adding apps to this car with this type of paradigm so it's it's just like a smart phone really it's and there's even the ability to change these apps so you can move buttons up to the front that you'll use the most there's a reorder button here and kind of move things around on here so that that's really useful we got a navigation here's something we haven't seen in 20 vehicles before these maps are running off of an SD card and we get a perspective view and that shows that sort of 3d look bird's-eye view of the terrain Toyota has not had this before so it's nice to see they finally gotten around to putting this e in one of their cars some people like this perspective more than others this head unit comes equipped with Toyota's and tune system that's their app integration systems I've got my phone sitting on here running them to an app connected to the car through bluetooth for hands-free calling and music streaming also works as a data connection for the apps that put includes on here so if I want to find a destination help you find a business the business you want to find CBS Interactive say the list number of the one you want or say none of these and once it brings it up on the map then I can hit and go to and that'll program it as a destination for navigation it's a lot of steps to go through that I kind of wish they would make that a little more convenient take out some of those steps but it is online search and need to see that in cars these days please proceed to the highlighted route the route guidance will start other apps in here we have within tune we can find those by just scrolling over to this screen here we've got movie tickets calm open table for making restaurant reservations Pandora and iHeartRadio for online music and we even have Facebook Places Yelp sport stocks and a fuel guide that will actually show you local fuel prices that's pretty convenient if you want to find your lowest price per gallon to feed this this monster of course we have the usual audio sources we've got bluetooth streaming audio we've got a USB port that does I Oh s integration HD radio and satellite radio and all this plays through a JBL sound system in this limited trim highlander 14 speakers of these at GreenEDGE speakers that's their label for a type of speaker that uses less energy but still is supposed to sound is good the clarity is good I mean hearing a lot of detail in the music and that's really nice but there's a big problem with this system any time the music gets a little bassy the speakers really rattle and distort it's it's really bad music lovers are not gonna like this car I'm not really sure what's going on with it but that's one of the real problems with this car and it's definitely a fault of engineering that you get this panel rattle and distortion from the system this Highlander being pretty much a family van has a third row seating so with this middle row I can pull some latches on the side here and pull this middle row forward gives me access to the third row it's not bad access third row is pretty small but you can put some kids back there I can also pull this down and make this middle row go pretty flat definitely not flush with the floor but if I pull the third row down too and I got a decent amount of cargo area back here maybe enough to get a couch from like here or something shut away under the hood here we have a 3.5 liter v6 engine Toyotas have to sit around for about 10 years 270 horsepower 248 pound-feet of torque those aren't great numbers by today's standards is it with an engine of this size fuel economy comes in at 18 miles per gallon city 24 miles per gallon highway you can also get a 2.7 liter 4-cylinder engine in this car that only gains you about one mile per gallon fuel economy so it's not a great bargain really now you can see what's this engine it's mounted pretty low a lot of space down here this transverse mount is pretty common in a front-wheel drive vehicle of course this has the all-wheel drive option which means it's way to put a drive shaft down to the rear wheels the more compelling engine option for this car is the hybrid drivetrain that gets up to 280 horsepower net you also get 28 miles per gallon fuel economy in this sort of standard 3.5 v6 configuration I've been seeing real world under 20 miles per gallon and that's not great as an average first thing I notice about the Highlander is the suspension it has a very comfortable ride a very springy compliant suspension since it has three rows of seating you put 1200 pounds of humanity in here and also have to ride comfortable for that too it's you know it's not a great handling suspension it'll it'll do alright but if you take a corner a little too fast like I've done a couple of times you'll feel it lean quite a bit it won't feel all that stable I really like how the steering is also tuned this is of course electronic assisted power steering as pretty much every new car is and one thing I do find that with this engine though it doesn't have a lot of power you can mash down the accelerator to pass somebody it's just not super fast I've also noticed with a transmission here six-speed automatic under power if you're climbing a hill or something like that in normal drive mode it tends to hunt you can fight feel it kind of shift up and then shift down and shifting up again put it in sport mode though climbing some hills and that seems to really solve the problem that just ensures it keeps the power up keeps in some lower years base price for the 2014 toyota highlander and le trim is thirty thousand four hundred seventy dollars we have the limited trim Platinum Edition that includes the driver Technology Package and panoramic sunroof with all-wheel drive that goes for forty four thousand eight hundred forty five dollars there are a lot of things I like about this 2014 Toyota Highlander there's a lot of good improvements in the technology I certainly like the head unit the Entune connected feature JBL speakers weren't my favorite the driver assistance features are pretty nice what I really don't like though is Toyota's engine options this 3.5 liter v6 is just not much power and terrible fuel economy the hybrid in this trim goes for 51,000 but that's probably the one I'd want