One year with the Highlander!

"mazda616" (mazda616) 09/15/2020 at 08:44 • Filed to: Toyota Highlander

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Yesterday marked one year with our Highlander. We brought it home Saturday, September 14, 2019.

It now has 10,541 miles as of my fuel-up this morning. We don’t drive as much as the national average anyway, but this figure is extra low because we have all been stuck at home for most of 2020.

The vehicle itself has been problem free, as expected. Averages mid-to-upper -20s as far as MPG goes on road trips. Around 19-20 in the city. Not bad for a big, AWD crossover.

My wife recently shut the garage door on the open tailgate and scuffed it pretty bad, and there are some assorted tiny parking lot scuffs, but it still looks good overall . We (I) keep it fairly clean.

ToyotaCare is pretty cool in that they’ve paid for my second oil change, first and second tire rotations, and first cabin air filter change. They would pay for the first oil change, but I had that done at 5k miles instead of their suggested 10k miles because we do so many short trips.

I can’t wait to get a trailer hitch and a small pop-up size camper to tow behind it next year. We won’t be doing that too often but it’ll be nice to have the option since we can’t do much else right now.

Overall, the Highlander has proven itself to be a good value and a great kid-hauler. Our two kids and my wife’s younger siblings fit well in it. And, thanks to this model’s relative lack of depreciation, it’s still wort h around $8k more than we owe on it.

First photo (September 14, 2019):

Most recent photo (September 12, 2020):

Just Jeepin' > mazda616 09/15/2020 at 09:17

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10k is pretty respectable for a pandemic.

And 20mpg is a dream for me.

mazda616 > Just Jeepin' 09/15/2020 at 10:15

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My car (Mazda 6) has seen the most dramatic drop in mileage thanks to the pandemic. It has gone upwards of a month without being driven. I’ve put 1,000 miles on it since May.

Long_Voyager94 > mazda616 09/15/2020 at 10:16

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We’ve tacked on almost 40k miles since July 5th 2019.

Still commuting to work everyday, so most of my miles stayed.

Glad to hear it’s treating you well overall.

mazda616 > Long_Voyager94 09/15/2020 at 10:52

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Do you live an eternity away from everything? That’s intense.

Living in a small-ish rural town, stuff is close to us. My wife’s workplace is 5 minutes down the road from home. No public transit in rural Kentucky, though. So, a car is a necessity.

Long_Voyager94 > mazda616 09/15/2020 at 12:07

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We live about 20-30 mins away from everything.

Small town, but not really anything useful in it, smack dab in the middle of two decent size towns.

I put over 13k/yr just commuting to work and that’s not including the Saturdays on occasion. Just working accounts for around 15k/year.