2026 Toyota Grand Highlander -- A Family Force to be Reckoned With! (Anything NEW?)

What's going on YouTube? So the Toyota Grand Highlander has proven to be a big sales success just as we predicted when this model first launched. And today we're with the latest 2026 example to see if anything is new this year. So is this the family SUV with three rows to beat? Well let's go ahead and find out. All right so let's get things started here under the hood with a spec dump. So for 2026 the Grand Highlander continues to be available in a wide variety of choices. This is the standard option. It is a 2.4 liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine making 265 horsepower. It's paired to an eight-speed automatic transmission and with all-wheel drive our combined fuel economy is 22 mpg. Now the base price in 2026 is sitting right at $41,000 and if you're looking to buy one or any new vehicle we'd encourage you to go to carconfections.com to get the best price. Now of course later on we're going to be taking this out for a spin. While we're on that spin we'll get a sound level reading and at the end discuss resale and reliability. But let's go ahead and close up the hood because we need to take a look at the exterior and of course the interior has a lot of features to discuss as well. So up here in the front you're not going to notice any changes for to the overall design for 2026. It continues with that signature Toyota look which has a little bit of a boxy appearance for a more rugged look like the rav4. Up here with our grille you'll notice that we have a blacked out fascia through here. There's going to be a little bit of a difference depending on which powertrain you choose. The hybrid max gets a more aggressive lower fascia and then we also have a little bit of silver accenting up here at the top for this platinum trim level you're looking at today. Now taking a look at our headlights we have standard full led headlights on all models. However the limited and above get the more premium led arrangement. It's projector low and high beam. We also have the led daytime running light and turn signal indicator across the top there and furthermore we have led fog lights. As we walk around to the back it continues with that signature Toyota design. Yeah and let's break down some of the individual elements because there is one new feature for 2026. But before we get to that we have a spoiler up here at the top and exposed rear wiper. Our grand highlander is spelled out across the back and let's take a look at our taillights. So our taillights are fully led so that's certainly very nice. You have your led brake light and turn signal as well as your led reverse light. Now when it comes to badging that's actually what's going to be new for 2026. The hybrid nightshade trim level now gets a black badging as standard equipment so that's certainly a nice addition this year. Now as we drop down to the lower fascia no exposed exhaust outlets for this standard gas platinum model. If you get the hybrid max versions those will add exhaust outlets. Your tow rating comes in at 5,000 pounds for most models. The standard hybrid though can only tow 3,500 pounds. As far as the wheels are concerned grand highlander begins at 18 inch alloys and as you move up the trims you go to 20 inch alloys. That of course is what you're looking at today. This is actually not the standard wheel that you get on the platinum trim. That's going to be a lot more blingy than this. We have an optional wheel on today's example which blacks it out gives it a little bit more of a stealthy appearance. Now around the wheels you'll see the matte black finish for the wheel arches as well as the lower moldings and as far as the mirrors are concerned we have standard blind spot monitoring and heating. If you want power folding you'll need to choose at least the limited trim. Now at this side this vehicle comes in at 201.4 inches in length. That is a very large option for the segment. I think that's really contributed to this vehicle's success because this is really really big and you'll see interior space a little bit later on. Now as far as design we have chrome on the lower part of the windows blacked out up top and then we also have chrome roof rails. We have the crossbars installed as well and then when it comes to your safety systems Toyota does not mess around. You have all of your active safety features as standard equipment. Additionally if you choose this platinum grade that's going to throw in extra goodies such as the traffic jam assist. But guys there's a lot to talk about on the inside and a really nice interior for this platinum but first if you're new here we're brothers and we've been reviewing cars since we were 12 and 16. We started young and since then we have reviewed over 2,000 vehicles at every price point. No matter what you're looking for from humble to high-end we'd love for you to subscribe to be a part of our car confections family. Let's learn a lot and have some fun with all the latest cars. All right moving on to the inside first here's our key fob. You have a standard smart entry system and you also have digital key supported. You can see you have Grand Highlander branding on the back of the key fob itself. Getting inside just grab behind the handle and that will unlock the door. Now taking a look at the interior of this Grand Highlander. Mason mentioned the luxury of this model and actually this has a little bit more of a luxurious appearance than some of the past Grand Highlanders we have reviewed and we'll explain more about that in just a second. But getting into the seats themselves this model begins with cloth seats. As you move up the trims you move to a leatherette and then you get to a real leather. That's what you get here on the platinum trim level. As you can see we've got a nice perforated design here with some color contrast finishes and piping. You can get three different color choices on the platinum trim. Portobello is an exclusive color for just the platinum from the other trim levels. Now as far as the seat adjustments all models have 10 ways of power adjustment with two-way lumbar support. We also have memory seats as well and let's climb on inside. Let's look around at the rest of the cabin materials. So like I was mentioning earlier there are some differences here and that's because in past we have been reviewing mostly the hybrid max version of the platinum and twit actually changes the interior quite a bit. First of all when you get the hybrid max you get a different seat that uses a suede insert. Also when we look over here at the door trim you'll see that we have a lot of this faux wood trim. This is not available with the hybrid max instead you have this bronze accented faux carbon fiber. Now as far as other materials we have a leatherette finish across the dashboard as well and then more of the wood trim through the center section and some stitching details. Also we have some silver accenting on this platinum trim level that's not going to be on the hybrid max version of the platinum trim. Now we'll fire it up with the standard push button starter. So with the vehicle all started up we'll begin with the gauge cluster as always and go through the individual details. This is the 12.3 inch digital gauge cluster this is what's included at the limited trim level and above and you can reconfigure this to a few different designs like you've seen on other toyota products. This platinum trim level also comes standard with a large head-up display and as we move back to the steering wheel we got a very traditional style toyota design steering wheel. Heating will be included on the limited trim and also rain sensing wipers on the limited and above. The steering wheel is always manual tilt and telescoping so that's kind of something that a few of the rivals give you the power adjustment on the top trims and we have the heating like I mentioned already. Moving over here to interior storage they don't call this grand highlander for nothing because this has a ton of storage all throughout the vehicle but also especially here in the front. So when I open up our center console here you're going to notice there's some donuts inside. Of course we did the signature donut test and this is a donut dominator because it fits two dozen donuts in here with ease and that of course is way above the 12 donuts required to pass the donut test and it's our maximum. Up in front of that we have our two cup holders you have another storage bin right there you have a wireless phone charging pad for all but the base model you have additional storage over here on the left side and we have a hidden storage compartment over here plus a passenger storage compartment so definitely a really huge amount of space up here like I was saying and that's despite the fact that this has a traditional shifter now if you get the hybrid max powertrain that will give you an electronic shifter instead but most of them will come with this shifter pull back for drive bump over here to the left for manual shift mode you have paddles on the steering wheel and then when you go into reverse here's our 360 degree camera system this is going to be standard on the platinum trim level and as you can see you have overhead views you can also clean your cameras back behind the shifter you have an electronic parking brake and brake hold system now right behind the shifter and those buttons you'll see a few more buttons for various different vehicle functions mostly our drive mode controller right here prominently in the center this button here will launch your 360 camera and let's move up to the climate controls next so we have a standard three zone automatic climate system on all models it's very easy to adjust you have these big knobs and full physical buttons all through here what we said in the past and i'll say it again today i do wish they were finished in the same color as the surrounding so that they were piano black because they just kind of look a little bit misplaced compared to the rest of the buttons nevertheless i'm glad they're all physical we also have heated seat controls over here plus if you get the ventilated seats that will be on the limited trim and above also on the limited trim and above is our jbl premium sound system otherwise you'll get a six speaker sound system as standard equipment let's give this top system a sample overall sound quality is certainly pretty decent it fills up the cabin very well it's just a very bass heavy sound system so if that's the type of music you listen to i think you'll be satisfied with the jbl all right now taking a look at the main infotainment screen toyota doesn't mess around with the sizing of this you get the 12.3 inch screen as standard even on the base trim level this has toyota's newest software so it's very simple to use you have features like navigation if you get the limited trim level also you have wireless android auto and apple carplay standard on all the trim levels up top we have an auto dimming mirror with homelink remotes built-in also since this is the platinum trim that gives you the digital camera rear view mirror that even if you have the back window blocked you can still see out the back and at the top here i'll slide back the sunshade for our panoramic sunroof this is a standard feature on the platinum trim level it's also available on lower trims as well as you can see you have the sunshade and also the front portion opens up now the rear areas of the grand highlander are really family friendly to the max which i think once again has really contributed to this vehicle's success now let's go ahead and talk about space figures first and foremost we're sitting at about 39 inches of leg room about 39 inches of headroom those are not quite class-leading figures for this segment but it's certainly a good amount of space and of course i brought along the official car confections ruler i'm five foot nine and this seat is adjusted to drew who is five foot eight that gives us a realistic knee room figure and we're sitting at eight and a half inches that's certainly quite good now my feet can also slide up underneath of the seat and the seats do have the ability to slide all the way to touch the front seats that's certainly nice for those of you with little kids and we have the ability to recline a good distance as well now you may have noticed that we have uh bent or captain's chairs here in the second row that's actually standard on most of the trim levels of the grand highlander you can get optional bench seating if you need the extra seating capacity by the way the maximum seating capacity is eight passengers as you see today this is seven passenger seating if you have the captain's chairs you have two cup holders here in the middle you can also fully remove this as well which was a feature they added last year for extra customizability now here in the center we have our own zone of climate additionally a lot of the models will give you heated back seats and here on the platinum you get additional seat ventilation that's certainly a really nice touch that a lot of the rivals still are not including we have two usb ports as well a household outlet in the middle and then let's take a look over at the door trims the door trim is going to be nicely done we have rear window sunshades once again on most of the models uh it's a little cheaper when it comes to materials it's kind of soft touch but mostly hard through the the middle and we have a leatherette armrest pad a little bit more storage up in the front area tons of door storage down in the bottom and if you're curious as to where your vents are they are located up here in the ceiling now let's go ahead and check out the third row in order to get back here it is quite easy you just grab this little lever right here that's going to release the seat and allow it to slide out of the way do be aware though that the back does move and let's go ahead and hop back here into the third row itself now one of the other things that's really grand about the grand highlander is the third row so we're sitting at 33 and a half inches of third row legroom that's really good for this segment that is actually the biggest thing that you can get in the entire segment about 37 inches of headroom so like i said i'm five foot nine and i do still have a little bit of extra headroom so that's certainly quite nice and i brought the official car confections ruler back here as well even with the seat slid all the way back in its tracks we're still sitting at two inches of extra knee room my feet can slide up underneath of these seats and i find these seats to be quite comfortable they're raised quite a bit off the ground so i have a pretty good thigh support now when it comes to features there's a lot of features as well so we actually have uh looks to be three cup holders here in the third row we have a usb c port and vents coming out of the ceiling here uh we have i wish this was padded that's about the only thing i'm going to complain about back here um so as far as how this rates on our third row rating scale i'm going to say this is absolutely fit for adults walking up to the tailgate as long as you get the limited trim or above you'll have the hands-free power tailgate and let's talk about cargo capacity that's another great thing for this vehicle so we're sitting at about 21 cubic feet of space behind the third row of seats if i reach up here and fold them down which honestly i wish they had included a power folding third row that is something that the grand highlander cannot get and honestly it's not the easiest third row to fold and especially at this price point you should have that feature that's going to give you 58 cubic feet behind the second row of seats and with all the seats folded you have a maximum of around 98 cubic feet that is absolutely incredible for this segment and speaking of this segment there are a ton of options that you could be looking at things like the traverse the honda pilot all those vehicles we'd encourage you to go to carconfections.com slash vehicle rankings because we've gone through all of those options and ranked them in the 10 most important categories to buyers in this segment and you can sort and see what might be your best options depending on what matters most to you whether that be cargo capacity third row room interior luxury powertrain choices reliability all those things are detailed there for you so if you want to make an informed buying decision definitely check that out now there are not any handles to fold the second row so let me go ahead and do that from the second row and now that i've got those seats folded down let's go ahead and get our cargo length width and height figure so as far as cargo length from behind drew's 5.8 driving position 91 inches of length that's really great from behind the second row with it slid all the way back 53 inches of length behind the third row 22 inches of length uh as far as the opening that's 49 inches wide that is incredible and height comes in at a whopping 32 inches as well all those figures are really good for this segment as far as the load-in height that's coming in at 32 inches as well if i lift up the floor there's a little bit of extra space and you also do have a spare tire on the well guys here we are behind the wheel of the toyota grand highlander in this test drive we're going to be discussing quite a lot as you can see on the screen right now we'll also get things like our sound level reading but first we need to go ahead and start with a hard acceleration so you can see what the powertrain is all about all right there is our acceleration to 60 miles per hour with the grand highlander so like we mentioned at the spec dump one of the things that honestly make the grand highlander stand out a lot against the competition is that you have a wide variety of powertrain choices and you can just pick what matches your lifestyle the best now what's standard is what we're driving today this is the 2.4 liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine this makes 265 horsepower and 310 pound feet of torque in terms of how this compares to many of the rival standard engines it is pretty much in line with most of them powers down just a little bit but you have quite a bit of torque since it's a turbocharged four-cylinder engine um also of course as we were talking about you've got two other choices so you have a hybrid kind of a traditional hybrid that one's going to have a little less power than this setup but it will get way better fuel economy and then you have the hybrid max and that gives you both better fuel economy than this and a whole lot more power yeah so you can see the full power figures and all of their information on the screen right now there's a lot to talk about and one of my favorite things about the grand highlander is that they do give you a lot of choice so for those of you that just want a straight gas engine if you're concerned about reliability or whatever and you just want the simple stuff this 2.4 turbo is probably going to be a great option for you we've driven the hybrid max plenty of times on this channel as well so if you'd like to check out a review of the hybrid max we have done that several times so you can go ahead and check that out as well it's definitely a really powerful option for the segment it's really one of the fastest options you can get uh in the entire segment yeah you can certainly feel the low-end torque with this engine and 0 to 60 is about seven and a half seconds for this one thing i do want to note about this is of course being a turbo four-cylinder you're going to have a little bit of a different character compared to some of the competition which still have a traditional v6 for example the new palisade and the honda pilot those engines will give you a little bit more of a refined sound characteristic as well as like noise vibration and harshness all around but this is not too bad this is the same engine that they use actually in the lexus tx350 now as far as the transmission is concerned we've got an 8-speed automatic transmission this is also nice and smooth and a good partner with this powertrain yeah and power is routed to the ground via the front wheels or optional all-wheel drive let me also quickly hit our fuel economy figures i'm sure you're curious about that so the gas all-wheel drive like what we have today is sitting at 20 26 22 mpg combined that's okay when it comes to fuel economy it's certainly not the best fuel economy out there however it is in line with most of the standard engine options in the rivals however if you're really fuel economy focused get the traditional hybrid model the traditional hybrid gets 36 miles per gallon that's fantastic fuel economy i really can't think of any other option in the segment that you're going to get better fuel economy than 36 mpg out of a huge suv like this and then the hybrid max like drew was mentioning earlier is kind of the middle ground that comes in a 27 miles per gallon combined so it's a little bit better than this and you also get way more power all right we are speeding up to 55 miles per hour i went ahead and toggled the rear climate off all of our vented seats are off and we have it on fan speed one let's see just how quiet this grand highlander is very nicely done 52.8 decibels is what we are sitting at as our sound level reading and the grand highlander now we don't sit here and guess how compares to all of its other three row midsize suv rivals you can find that at carconfections.com slash sound level readings and indeed that does place this as one of the quietest options in the entire vehicle segment that's really fantastic now we previously had tested out you know grand highlanders and they were sitting um you know also pretty quiet and this basically confirms that and i want to point out that we even have things like the crossbars installed you can see those on the moonroof right now that typically adds to a little bit of a louder cabin so i'm happy to tell you that you'll have a nice and quiet one here with the grand highlander also going to be great with the grand highlander is your ride quality so as you saw just there with the bridge abutment we have really great ride on this vehicle so we're sitting at 20 inch wheels on the outside you have really soft and supportive seats up here in the front and the suspension just does a great job now they're going to have anything fancy going on with adaptive dampers or anything like that but they've just really done a good job of tuning the suspension to be exactly what families are wanting it's super super comfortable on this model yeah and there's a little bit of a different balance to the driving dynamic when you choose this standard model versus the hybrid max because the hybrid max is i don't know if i want to call it a performance option but it is a lot higher performance they do tune the suspension a little bit more aggressively to help that to have a sportier handling characteristic this one here is all about comfort all right let's get into our slam dunk and air ball i'll go ahead and kick us off with the slam dunk and just say you've seen it throughout this entire video this vehicle is a car that just nails the family aspect of things when it comes to comfort when ride quality wise we have a ton of space in all of the rows as well as the cargo department it really just checks a lot of boxes off for families which is why this vehicle has been a sales success already i think they've already sold a hundred thousand of these as of the time of us filming this in 2025 yeah for sure now on the airball side of things is that toyota makes you pay to play so these models are typically going to be some of the and it's particularly if you get on the lower end of the trim structure it's still going to have a pretty high price tag and not a ton of luxury or extra like goodies and features that you might want to see and that you do get in some of the competition they kind of make you move up to really about the limited trim to unlock those goodies and before we wrap up i do want to point out the powertrains you cannot get every powertrain on every trim level there's quite a lot going on when it comes to that so you can see a text box on the screen right now with all of your powertrain options based on each of the trim levels now let's discuss pricing so i'm happy to tell you for 2026 model year toyota didn't raise the price a ton you're only looking at about between four to five hundred dollars on most of the trim levels so that's not a huge price increase that's certainly good news we start at forty one thousand three sixty for the base le with front wheel drive of course there are a ton of trim levels and a ton of powertrains with this model you can see all the prices on the screen right now if you want to see the full lineup what we have today is the 2026 grand highlander platinum all-wheel drive so the standard powertrain we also have a slew of accessories as well as those sixteen hundred dollar wheels 14.95 destination all told we are looking at sixty thousand six hundred and thirty three bucks as tested today if you're curious as to where this vehicle is manufactured it is assembled in princeton indiana so it is here in the us now if you're looking to buy a toyota grand highlander or any new vehicle we'd encourage you to go to carconfections.com slash new car quotes the reason you do that is because we have a tool on our website that'll connect you with local car dealers in your area to get you the best price it's also going to give you access to invoice pricing information which is a great tool to use while dealer negotiating if you'd like to take advantage of all that as well as things like our monthly payment tool you can find a link to that in our video description as well as a pinned comment down below but buying a vehicle like this is about more than just the original price so let's talk about resale and reliability first up let's talk about resale value as an economics graduate myself we took the time to develop what we think is a good estimate for this toyota grand highlanders potential resale value we estimate that after five years and sixty thousand miles it'll be worth 64.5 percent of original msrp and after 10 years and 120 000 miles 41.4 percent now it's worth noting those are really fantastic resale value percentages it's actually one of the very best brands of every vehicle make that we look at and it is higher than most of its competition now the same can also be said when we're talking about reliability so we designed something called the combined reliability index this takes into account several reliability studies from trustworthy sources and combines them in a way that gives you the most holistic picture when combined with the latest data toyota is rated as the number one automaker for overall reliability now if you'd like to learn more about our reliability our resale values or our methodology be sure to go to carconfections.com slash resell and carconfections.com slash reliability buying a new vehicle is a big decision so you want to make sure you're making a smart purchase especially if you're cross-shopping between different vehicle brands lastly when it comes to your warranty you have a three or thirty six thousand mile basic warranty a five year sixty thousand mile powertrain warranty additionally you do get two years and twenty five thousand miles of complimentary maintenance and guys that wraps up our in-depth review of the 2026 toyota grand highlander if you enjoyed watching this video or found it helpful in your purchasing decisions which we really hope you did we'd appreciate it if you hit that subscribe button down below by subscribing you're going to be a part of our car confections family we have a lot of fun on this channel and cover all the latest cars on the market i promise you won't want to miss out if you're already a part of our family thank you so much for your continued support we'll catch you next time as we sample more of the latest automotive delicacies