NHTSA complaint #11710711

Owner complaint summary

The entire head unit in the center of the front console went crazy and started going blank, glitching out, and basically made it impossible to use any of the features associated with that screen unit. The 2022 Toyota Highlander's head unit controls infotainment (radio, streaming, navigation, phone) and integrates with vehicle settings for climate (auto AC, seat heaters/ventilators), lighting, door locks, and driver-assist features like Road Sign Assist and Parking Support Brake, with over-the-air updates available for connected models. It manages multimedia, Bluetooth, Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, Wi-Fi, and vehicle alerts, offering deep customization for audio, display, and connectivity. We promptly took the car into the Toyota Dealer and they determined it was a bad head unit and I had to pick up the car and they made us drive the car for about 1 1/2 weeks broken, while the part was in transit. After the part arrived, we scheduled visit for that part replacement. They later called and said that it was causing the same issues and had to do a further diagnostic and determined that the integragation control sub assembly computer (the cpu for the head unit?) was actually the bad part. The 2nd part was ordered and installed, and ultimately repaired the issue. We had limited control over the heater and keeping the ice off the windows and other issues with no navigation and other systems during this 1 1/2 week period. This is also the same screen that gives us the backup camera, and the 360 degrees camera views. Wow, not happy that such a major part failed with the car being so new. We bought the car brand new with just a few miles on it, and have bought every service and insurance package that Toyota offered when we purchased the car and have kept and maintained the car in excellent shape doing all maintenance exactly on schedule.