Tuesday, 3 May 2016

2014 Toyota Highlander ( toyota highlander towing capacity )

 toyota highlander towing capacity
First drive evaluation
Toyota doesn’t need its all-new 2014 Highlander to be painted with the identical “mother Bomb” brush that’s ruined sales of minivans. So for 2014, Toyota’s wrapped its large-promoting crossover SUV in extra-angular sheetmetal designed to attract greater dudes. There’s additionally a bolder grille that’s slightly harking back to the brutish snout of the full-size Tundra pickup, in addition to distinguished chrome eyebrows, which sound like something female Gaga needs she had but are in truth a long way extra tame. The wheels are larger, too, with the bottom rollers going from 17 to 18 inches, and that they sit under greater-muscular wheel flares. Wider with the aid of zero.6 inch and longer via 2.7 inches, the new Highlander indeed strikes a incredibly more macho pose versus the outgoing 2013 version, although it stops short of imparting a Hummer-like hit of testosterone.

Internal, the Highlander’s indoors has been “Avalon-ized” with greater gentle-contact substances on the sprint and doors. Toyota admits to tooth-and-nail opposition from Korean nameplates invading the decrease quit of the mid-size crossover phase, so the japanese firm has stirred in more capabilities and refinement to move the Highlander a piece towards Lexus RX350 territory. Toyota additionally says it stiffened the Highlander’s body, in particular in the roof and B-pillar location. Subsequently, it says it made a point of making the 2014 model quieter, adding a brand new acoustic windshield, a thicker the front sprint-panel silencer, and underneath-carpet sound deadening.  Talking of small fry, Toyota’s upped the brand new Highlander’s passenger capacity to eight. Replacing the previous version’s strut rear suspension with a brand new trailing-arm double-wishbone setup eliminated the intrusive rear strut towers and allowed for a third-row seat that’s three.7 inches wider. The third row nevertheless isn’t an area you’d assign to everybody you want, despite the fact that a 2nd-row seat that slides fore and aft does can help you extra carefully parse out legroom among the rearmost rows. Toyota discovered more area via scaling down the the front seatbacks, and all seats had been moved forward slightly, contributing to a 34 percent boom in shipment space at the back of the very last row. And Toyota stays the simplest carmaker that still gives a rear liftgate with independently establishing glass.

The 2014 Highlander receives its muscle from the equal powertrains as last 12 months. A 185-hp, 2.7-liter four-cylinder is general on the fee-leader LE model, however most Highlanders will be offered with the 270-hp three.5-liter V-6. The same old six-velocity automatic functions guide manage, a Snow mode, and hill-start help. Additionally general is Eco mode, which flattens throttle reaction and forces earlier component-throttle upshifts to suck much less fuel. Towing capability stays at 5000 kilos for V-6 models. Optionally available for V-6 fashions most effective is on-demand AWD that operates in front-power mode except slippage is detected. A locking mode is preferred, though. Four-cylinder EPA estimates stay similar to ultimate 12 months’s at 20/25 mpg, however the V-6 numbers bounce barely to 19/25 for front-force models and 18/24 for AWDs. A 3-motor AWD gasoline-electric powered version of the 2014 Highlander (rated at 27 town/28 dual carriageway) will also be available, however we haven’t but had a hazard to test that one.  Once on the street, the measures Toyota has taken to quiet the Highlander’s cabin are right now obvious. The hushed demeanor and a sense of structural fortitude are primary takeaways. The brand new trailing-arm double-wishbone rear suspension is ordinarily a space-saving layout, but that setup’s stepped forward camber control in concert with decreased friction inside the car’s variable-boost electric steerage gear can provide linear reaction at flip in and weights up moderately properly at dual carriageway speeds. (In layman’s phrases, which means it’s more correct to place in parking masses and round city whilst requiring much less guidance corrections at the freeway.) The Highlander feels quite strong at speed. Torque steer nevertheless rears its unpleasant head at wide-open-throttle downshifts on the front-drive Highlanders, and feedback from the guidance wheel is minimal. Also, the Highlander’s brakes, even as easy to modulate, lack pinnacle-of-pedal crispness. The good information is the 2014 version’s frame motions are better controlled and trip frequencies are a chunk shorter in amplitude, supplying a primary comparison to the floatier experience of previous models. Possibilities to tackle twisty again roads have been nonexistent in the course of the clicking occasion in historical Charleston, S.C., so we’re searching forward to flogging one mercilessly on our home turf soon.

Even as the brand new Highlander does put on some fancier duds, in the long run it remains the trusty minivan surrogate that it’s usually been, and that Toyota desires it to be. Need greater proof? To market it this model to the loads, Toyota’s great Bowl advert for the Highlander featured the own family-friendly Muppets in preference to, say, burly pictures of adventure. (It did have a burly and shirtless Terry Crews, although.) That strategy makes experience, of direction—they promote this stuff with the aid of the boatload, and mom Bomb or no longer, nobody at Toyota could dare fix what wasn’t damaged.

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