By Christopher A. Sawyer
The Virtual Driver

(July 27, 2014) It’s the damndest thing. No matter how hard or how many times I look at the measurements, Toyota’s third generation Highlander comes out feeling much bigger than it is, especially when compared to the Ford Explorer. Step aboard and you notice just how wide the vehicle is, how far away are some of the controls, and how tall the interior feels.

Drive the Highlander, and you notice how large it feels when you attempt to park it between two other vehicles in a parking lot. However, if you look at the official measurements of the two SUVs (below), a different story emerges.



The Highlander is shorter, narrower and lower than the Explorer, and it rides on a 2.8-in. shorter wheelbase. Yet, in comparison, the Ford feels smaller, cozier, more intimate and doesn’t seem to have as capacious a cargo area as the Toyota.

The week with the Highlander was spent running around town, hitting a few garage sales, going to the big box stores for hardware and other items, etc. It was a typical week in the life of a crossover. There was no trouble putting a five foot-tall barrister’s bookcase (a huge garage sale find) into the cargo bay. Just pull the handle and fold the seats flat, then shove the bookcase into the space provided. (Toyota engineers wisely separated the tilt/slide and fold function, and assigned each task to a different handle on the side of the second row seats. The third row seats are dropped by grabbing the nylon tethers at each outboard corner, and pulling.)

If you want, and we did, you can hit a couple more garage sales without having to go home and unload it first. That's convenient.

The wide cargo opening makes it easy to maneuver large items into the hold without banging into either the exterior or interior of the vehicle. This made loading the bookcase a snap as the homeowner and I were able to get the leading edge onto the load floor, then work our way around to the side as we pushed the bookcase into place. There’s no need to dodge bumpers, low-hanging tailgates or interior cubbies that are more adept at getting in the way than carrying anything.

The third row is reasonably wide, but lacking in legroom and headroom when compared to the Explorer. Also, cargo area isn’t great when the third row is being used; the Ford has a distinct advantage here with 7.2 feet more volume. Things are much closer when the third row is down, and the Toyota pulls out a three cubic-foot advantage when the second and third rows are folded.

It’s apparent that Ford put most of the Explorer’s six inch length advantage to work in the area behind the third row, and spent its 2.8-inch wheelbase advantage in the second and third rows. The Highlander may have 3.6 inches more front seat legroom, but you’d have to be an NBA forward to need it.

Better to spread some of that space to the remaining rows where the Highlander has a 1.4- and 5.5-in. disadvantage. The story is the same for headroom, though the Toyota has significantly more hip and shoulder room the farther back you go. This can be a great advantage when hauling the kids to hockey, baseball or soccer practice, or on those long family trips where the inevitable, “He’s touching me,” arguments break out.

So the Highlander lives larger than its numbers suggest, and the 270 horsepower and 248 lb-ft of torque produced by the 3.5-liter V6 feel stronger than the numbers indicate. Part of this is due to a low (high numerically) final drive ratio and a deep first gear.

The rest is down to the fact that a V6 AWD Highlander weighs about 4,500 pounds. Though EPA rated at 18 city/24 highway/20 combined, the Highlander returned a solid 22 mpg average in combined city/highway driving during its week in my care. That’s one mpg better on both the city and highway rating than the Ford.

The Highlander has some neat features, like a huge center console with a roll top desk-like cover, second row captain’s chairs with a folding side table and twin cupholders, but it has its failings as well. The most annoying is the center stack display. It is located up high on the instrument panel where it is easy to see, but activating any of the controls on the far side is best left to the front seat passenger. It’s a l-o-n-g reach to the far side of the display, and brushing your hand on the screen often changes the information being displayed, whether you wanted that to happen or not.

In addition, you have to take your eyes off the road as you reach over, and — quite naturally — you lean in that direction, which means you are no longer centered behind the steering wheel. Leave anything on that side of the instrument panel centerline to the front seat passenger.

The individual captain’s chairs (a $275 option), are comfortable, and the table that folds out between the two is very useful. Quite surprisingly, so is the third row. The greater width of the rear compartment means adults can sit back there without feeling like stowaways on a freighter. Legroom is significantly less than that found in the third row of the Explorer, but you get nearly five inches more shoulder and hip room. Plus, the second row can be scooted forward a bit to liberate some legroom. If that’s not enough, XLE and Limited trim levels come with “Driver Easy Speak.” This uses the microphone located in the overhead console to amplify the driver’s voice, and broadcast it through the rear speakers. Now you don’t have to yell, “Don’t make me come back there.” Instead, you can say it in a normal tone.

On the road, the Highlander rides and handles better than its immediate predecessor. Toyota engineers altered the spring curve by retuning the front MacPherson struts’ coil springs, and using low-friction materials in the front dampers to reduce “stiction” under cornering and braking. In back, the previous dual-link/MacPherson strut rear suspension has been replaced by a double-wishbone design with better camber control. And though it can be a bit “stiff-kneed” on bumpy surfaces when the vehicle is unladen, its greatest attribute is the cargo space it liberates by locating the coil springs and dampers outboard.

Ride harshness is still a problem with the Highlander, especially when it’s unladen. Tire slap over road irregularities makes its way into the cabin in the form of noise and a sharp reaction at the tire. It lacks finesse.

The steering wheel, on the other hand, moves around on rough roads, feeling like it has too much rubber for isolation. It’s not alarming by any means, but it reinforces the thought that Toyota still is in need of help from top-level ride and handling engineers to damp out the annoying ride and handling characteristics its vehicles often exhibit.

All-in-all, the third generation Highlander is a roomy, handsome crossover that places its greatest emphasis on the comfort of its driver and passengers. It can swallow most anything you throw in the rear — including passengers — gets good gas mileage, and is solidly constructed.

However, its visual bulk makes it feel larger than it is, and increases the “pucker factor” in tight confines. This diminishes over time, but buyers will have to decide whether this a tie breaker or a deal breaker between it and a vehicle like the more nimble Ford Explorer.

MSRP: $37,500

Options: Rear-seat BluRay DVD entertainment system with 9-in. display, RCA jacks, remote and two wireless headphones, $1,810; second row captain’s chairs (leather-trimmed second row captain’s chairs with folding side table with two cupholders), $275

Delivery and handling fee: $850

Price as tested: $40,445

The Virtual Driver