My educated guess on the Grand Highlander. First possibility is that it’s simply a front wheel drive model, and the first time it rained and they tried to take off from a stop, the front wheels chattered because it couldn’t grab traction that well. And it was a bit of mistake on their part to settle for less than they wanted so they traded it for something they could get their hands on and that unfortunately was a Kia… GH’s are much harder to get a hold of to this day and are still virtually nowhere to be found at any Toyota dealership. Owner Wanted AWD, A GH was not available to test drive and buy, got the Kia in likely AWD. This vehicle shouldn’t be available in front wheel drive, and you should definitely not get one unless it has AWD. My second-guess would be they got a bad finance deal originally so they traded it in for some type of special financing deal for the Kia at a much lower rate and a better payment. Third guess that could possibly be a combination of the first guess, might be they just didn’t like the hybrid powertrain. It’s very different than a traditional Gas car if you’re not used to it .. and /or when you have the basic hybrid in the GH, it doesn’t have a lot of guts when it comes to acceleration. You need The standard model with the four-cylinder turbo all-gas or jump up to a hybrid MAX for the torque. It’s super weird and annoying that the middle option for powertrains has the lowest amount of guts. The Toyota 2.4 L turbo (yes I’m aware of this vehicle has the 2.5 L engine) is off to a really good start across all vehicles it’s available in, with very little problems that I have seen. And the naturally aspirated 2.5 L is as bulletproof as you can get any modern day vehicle. I have yet to see one of them fail, except for one in a Camry, where the guy had a pop and bang tune and thrashed the crap out of his vehicle every day and it failed at 100,000 miles. I’ve worked at multiple dealerships and I have seen people trade in cars for the stupidest reasons or because they didn’t like one specific thing about the car or they regretted not getting one specific option. I saw that ALL the time. So I doubt there was anything wrong with that vehicle. I’m very active in a lot of the Grand Highlander groups on various platforms, and virtually everybody’s extremely happy with the car minus a few small nitpicking complaints. So if you’re going to get one, make sure it’s exactly what you want, the finance deal is right, and don’t settle.
I haven’t. It just went through the shop / detail today. If it’s still here when I get back from my days off I’m going to try and make a video on it. They have a huge stop sale recall on new ones right now
The day people start to trade in new Toyotas (or Toyotas in general) for Kias, that's the day cats start chasing dogs. I mean, there's a subset of people that they hear about a brand, even Toyota, having engine and transmission troubles in new vehicles, they get scared and dump the car right away, even at the expense of being upside down and dragging negative equity into a new vehicle. I mean I bought a new Corolla S back in like 2011, I had the car for a year and I traded out of it, from the factory it had issues the dealer couldn't or wouldn't fix and I didn't want to deal with it so I got something else, once in a while Toyota and Honda will make a "miss" instead of a "hit" I mean nobody's perfect. Once in a while you'll get a bad one. It happens.
Someone trading a Toyota for a kia was the super surprising.
My educated guess on the Grand Highlander.
First possibility is that it’s simply a front wheel drive model, and the first time it rained and they tried to take off from a stop, the front wheels chattered because it couldn’t grab traction that well. And it was a bit of mistake on their part to settle for less than they wanted so they traded it for something they could get their hands on and that unfortunately was a Kia… GH’s are much harder to get a hold of to this day and are still virtually nowhere to be found at any Toyota dealership. Owner Wanted AWD, A GH was not available to test drive and buy, got the Kia in likely AWD. This vehicle shouldn’t be available in front wheel drive, and you should definitely not get one unless it has AWD.
My second-guess would be they got a bad finance deal originally so they traded it in for some type of special financing deal for the Kia at a much lower rate and a better payment.
Third guess that could possibly be a combination of the first guess, might be they just didn’t like the hybrid powertrain. It’s very different than a traditional Gas car if you’re not used to it .. and /or when you have the basic hybrid in the GH, it doesn’t have a lot of guts when it comes to acceleration. You need The standard model with the four-cylinder turbo all-gas or jump up to a hybrid MAX for the torque. It’s super weird and annoying that the middle option for powertrains has the lowest amount of guts.
The Toyota 2.4 L turbo (yes I’m aware of this vehicle has the 2.5 L engine) is off to a really good start across all vehicles it’s available in, with very little problems that I have seen. And the naturally aspirated 2.5 L is as bulletproof as you can get any modern day vehicle. I have yet to see one of them fail, except for one in a Camry, where the guy had a pop and bang tune and thrashed the crap out of his vehicle every day and it failed at 100,000 miles.
I’ve worked at multiple dealerships and I have seen people trade in cars for the stupidest reasons or because they didn’t like one specific thing about the car or they regretted not getting one specific option. I saw that ALL the time. So I doubt there was anything wrong with that vehicle.
I’m very active in a lot of the Grand Highlander groups on various platforms, and virtually everybody’s extremely happy with the car minus a few small nitpicking complaints. So if you’re going to get one, make sure it’s exactly what you want, the finance deal is right, and don’t settle.
Like that 1 owner Jeep
Cool unit for sure
The Highlander is puzzling
Agreed. We see that fairly often actually..... Nearly new cars being traded for whatever reason
I'm guessing all the Chargers and Challengers are in the repo yard? 😆 I didn't see any traded in.
What was wrong with the grand highlander that they went with a Kia? Did they not like something about it?
I did not do that deal unfortunately so I’m not sure. Sounds like they just didn’t like it very much.
@BadoreksDailys man so many questions, since I would like to purchase one when they obviously loose their value to newer models, have you driven it?
I haven’t. It just went through the shop / detail today. If it’s still here when I get back from my days off I’m going to try and make a video on it. They have a huge stop sale recall on new ones right now
The day people start to trade in new Toyotas (or Toyotas in general) for Kias, that's the day cats start chasing dogs. I mean, there's a subset of people that they hear about a brand, even Toyota, having engine and transmission troubles in new vehicles, they get scared and dump the car right away, even at the expense of being upside down and dragging negative equity into a new vehicle. I mean I bought a new Corolla S back in like 2011, I had the car for a year and I traded out of it, from the factory it had issues the dealer couldn't or wouldn't fix and I didn't want to deal with it so I got something else, once in a while Toyota and Honda will make a "miss" instead of a "hit" I mean nobody's perfect. Once in a while you'll get a bad one. It happens.
@BadoreksDailys thank you, I'm sure we all who are interested to know about it will tune in.