Toyota Highlander review: Big family car delivers on comfort and poise

The Toyota Highlander is a very civilised beast and a viable go-anywhere 4x4 alternative to the legend that is the Land Cruiser. It also has seven seats and, generally, is a very practical family SUV

The new look Toyota Highlander

TOYOTA HIGHLANDER
Rating	★★★★☆
Price	from €65,225 - €76,450 as tested
Engine	a 2.5 litre petrol hybrid with 244 bhp
The Spec	very comprehensive
Verdict	terribly civilized altogether

Surprising things come from surprising quarters every now and then and this week’s tester is a very surprising thing indeed.

You might, reasonably, think that the Toyota Highlander is one of those big made-for-America SUVs and you would not be too far wide of the mark. Obviously, the genre is huge in America, but Toyota has slowly realised the car was applicable to other, lesser, markets too and last year they introduced it to Ireland.

But, how to describe it? Well, I suppose the Highlander is a sort of civilized Land Cruiser. Indeed, I was asked this question when I had the car recently by a friend who owns and loves his 08-reg and, by now, near-500,000 km Land Cruiser.

People with LCs – as aficionados call them – are deeply enchanted by their cars, loving them as much as they would their own flesh and blood. So, to describe another Toyota product as being “a more civilised” version of their beloved workhorse is a horribly grievous insult. It’s nearly as bad as telling a guy his wife’s on the game.

“You what?” the man responded, veins in his neck suddenly bulging with rage. “I’ll have you know that my car has nearly 500,000 kilometres on the clock and I’ve never had a moment’s problem with it – and it’s nearly fifteen years old,” he exploded with incoherent fury.

“Yes, I know the Land Cruiser is one of the best workhorses out there and they are generally completely bombproof,” I sputtered. 

"But for most people they’re as rough as a badger’s ass.” 

At this point my buddy had to be taken to a darkened room to cool off, muttering evil threats about my wellbeing and voicing terrible thoughts about my sanity.

OK, so it might be a little OTT to have described the Highlander thus, but I thought it was a fair point, as it is a very civilised beast altogether and a viable go-anywhere 4x4 alternative to the legend that is the Land Cruiser. It also has seven seats and, generally, is a very practical family thing.

I mean if you’re not felling trees daily or engaged in gold mining deep in the Yukon, but still need to visit your aunt in the Black Valley every now and then, then you might consider something, er, less agricultural than a LC as being appropriate to your needs. If that’s the case, then look no further than the Highlander.

So what of it? Well it’s a pretty undistinguished looker, albeit endowed with some of those ‘non-boring’ swoopy lines that the Toyota design department has come up with in recent times. Other than being very big and commanding a lot of physical presence, it is not an outstanding looker. Quite ordinary, in fact.

On the inside there are obvious similarities to the RAV4, which is understandable, but it is considerably more commodious, as evidenced by the third row of seats. These are tight for adults and caution is advised getting in there for fear of unintended amputations. Adults will not stay the course back there for longer trips, but for growing families the amount of room is perfectly acceptable.

Overall the décor is unrelentingly black or dark grey, albeit with a slash of aluminium-type stuff but the materials used are pleasing to the touch and of a much higher grade – premium nearly – than you might expect.

The leather seats are pleasingly squishy and comfortable and the middle row slides fore and aft to give you a little bit of wiggle room and with the second and third row folded flat there is huge cargo space. That said, with the third row in place, luggage space is slack.

Equipping levels are of a high order and the infotainment system is easy to use and live with, although not as attractive or intuitive as some of the latest things the opposition is springing upon us.

In Premium spec as tested, the Highlander bristles with kit, including front and rear parking sensors, an electric back door with a kick function, a head-up driver’s display, sat nav., 20” alloys, panoramic roof, heated front seats and – just what you always wanted – ambient lighting. The impressive JBL audio system also has 11 speakers.

The TSS2 safety system also gives you a battery of defensive armoury including collision mitigation, a clever sway warning system for when you’re towing, intelligent adaptive cruise control, automatic high beam, cyclist and pedestrian detection system, automatic high beam lights and a lane departure warning that can simply be turned off at the touch of a button rather than every time you get into the thing.

All very civilized then – and very American too, but what the hey, that’s all good. But the real good bit is still to come.

Regular readers will know of our ambivalence towards what is by now a redundant propulsion system – hybrid. Heck, even Toyota itself is winding down its’ hybrid production because it has realised that pure EVs are the future.

The Highlander, however, has one of the last generation self-charging hybrid engines and it is actually quite nice to drive, which is not something we’ve fully experienced before. Sure the CVT gearbox requires the usual warning that if you’re an enthusiastic driver and like to keep the shoe in, you’re not going to like this.

A heavy right foot will keep the revs soaring all the time, producing a fearful screechiness from under the hood. Cool your jets a tad and you’ll find a car that can pull away smoothly and without that din; and shuffling between electric and petrol power is seamless and unnoticed.

I suppose that after nearly 20 years of development you’d expect to get an engine that is somewhat sophisticated and, er, civilized. But that’s what’s on offer here is a 2.5 litre petrol hybrid and with 244 bhp on tap and a 0-100 km/h time of 8.3 seconds (which is impressive for something this big) and a top speed of just over 180 km/h, shows the Highlander is no laggard.

On top of that you get some reasonable fuel returns as well – increasingly important these days – with a claimed 7.05 l/100 km (39.7 mpg) return over the combined cycle and we saw a figure of 6.7 (41.3) during mixed driving.

Throw in the all-wheel drive system and you have something that’s impressively quick and secure on the road. Sure the emphasis in the design here has been on comfort rather than truly precise handling, but the Highlander does give a good account of itself in this department and it rides well enough to dismiss our pockmarked road network with distain.

The steering might be a little too light for some tastes because it doesn’t really communicate well with the driver – something which is another reason to relax your driving style in this car. That indicates this is a cruiser rather than anything else and that’s another pointer to the car’s American-ness.

Despite this not being a terribly exciting car, it is awfully nice. I really liked driving the Highlander – somewhat surprisingly, it has to be said – and what really got me was how fit for purpose it is as a family car. And, if you could supress the devil in yourself for long enough and drive it with some restraint, it delivered on both comfort and poise.

So, if you feel your Land Cruiser days are over and you need something less agricultural, but still want go-anywhere ability, then you don’t have to look too far. Just be careful how you explain your reasoning to other Land Cruiser owners – they don’t take too kindly to that sort of thing.