Hi scotty I have a 2021 toyota highlander platinum and at 114,000 miles the transmission went out they said this is a problem for this transmission would it be a possibility of being a money pit or should I trade it back in.
isolated incident or a sign of things to come for this transmission
This is about the 5th one we saw on this forum.
I remember 2 at low millage on highlanders,
and I remember 2-3 on Camrys at higher millage. (example)
That's on top of "not broken" ones having delayed engagements, jerking, etc. (example)
The cooling system on these is crap (always clogged up and not sufficient in the first place),
Toyota does not provide much of a torque capacity "buffer", and goes against fluid replacements,...
It's a bit of a mess...
And the entire subframe has to come out cause there's not enough place to separate them under the hood.
The Toyota MSRP price of this transmission is $5,843.24 and even the "warranty time" (much less than the time they will charge a costumer out of warranty) is a painful 7.3 hours, out of warranty that's easily 10 hours that's at the very least a grand in labour...
EDIT: This post in Russian (use google translate to see in English) details quite a few more 8 speeds that have failed at low millage and says this one has the same "central case bearing" issue as the 6 speeds.
https://www.drive2.ru/o/b/620437370197540395/
the transmission went out (...) should I trade it back in
The dealer isn't looking to help you, they want to buy the car cheap and repair it - if they wouldn't think that after the tranny replacement it will be fine they wouldn't offer you the trade-in.
What's the repair estimate?
What's the fair market value?
What's the trade-in value?
Without these it's hard to judge what's the best option.
After extensive digging I found the other Camry transmission failure I remembered -
At under 65k miles!
https://carkiller.com/scottykilmer/qa/need-advice-19-camry-se-transmission-dead-after-almost-65000-miles/
.
I'm adding @DayWalker as you're interested in purchase of and long term of a car equipped with this tranny while the its reliability record is turning out to be pretty bad on the Camry/Highlander.
Was the transmission serviced regularly?
Whoa. That is very interesting.
That transmission is the UA80E or UA80F, came out around 2017ish. It is used in the Sienna and Avalon.
May I ask how hard or light it was driven (like a grandma, towing, fast acceleration, etc…)
I am wondering if this is an isolated incident or a sign of things to come for this transmission.
Supposedly they shrunk down the previous generation transmission, but to pull the same or better weight/power/torque.
Very interesting.
EDIT: This post in Russian (use google translate to see in English) details quite a few more 8 speeds that have failed at low millage and says this one has the same "central case bearing" issue as the 6 speeds.
Thanks for the details on this.
Would transmission oil changes done anything to prevent this? Or is this just bad design and/or manufacturing?