I really dont see the four cylinder getting much better mileage than the V6. Last time I checked the highlander isnt a compact SUV. The additional cog will help a tad but I just feel that the four will have to work harder to lug this thing around. Imagine this…a family gets the optional third row, they load up this thing for a road trip….then they meet some steep mountain passes….yeah exactly—trouble. This is just toyota trying to sucker in more of their ‘Japan only’ buyers so they can say they are being responsible with their carbon footprint. But you cant knock toyota they build good vehicles and people seem to love toyotas as blindly as they love barak obama!! haha. Btw.. Barak n Roll 08′!!!

At least it sounds like a pretty beefy four cylinder. It’s great to see Toyota do it so speedily, It wouldn’t surprise me they already had the configuration and everything for it before this, and all they had to do was testing.

Most four cylinder engines of that size are extremely uncomfortable, with lots of NVH. I hope Toyota got the four cylinder on this one right.

I wish Toyota would mate the 2.7 4 cylinder with a hybrid. Imagine a 210 hp Highlander that gets 30+ city and highway mpg. That would eat up competitive market share so quick. The current Highlander HV is useless, especially when the gas V6 matches it in horsepower.

Thanks to CAFE this will become common practice among all the automakers. As long as the vehicle posts a good mileage figure to display on the window when it’s on the dealers lot that’s all that really matters. The real world be damned.

If it were a 4 cyl diesel I might be interested.

As if this thing will be able to pull 3500 (8000+ total) up anything more than a 2% grade without running very close to redline. At which point the reliability ain’t gonna be so hot.

#4, CAFE doesn’t matter. CAFE is based on volume. So if Toyota continues to sell a lot of V6 powered Highlanders, and the 4 cylinder doesn’t take off, it’ll negate any increase in Toyota’s CAFE.

A 2.7L 4?? That’s freaking huge. It’ll never get good gas mileage.

I wouldn’t be suprised if it was getting mileage in the upper 20’s. ~180lbs of torque from a 4 cylinder is impressive, but i don’t know why they didn’t just put in a small 6 cylinder. It probably makes sense somewhere, but with a large 4 cylinder you have to put in a lot of extra balancing stuff in the engine ( more rotating mass ) to keep the vibrations down. I suppose toyota saw this as beneficial to mpg.

I would love to see this 2.7l motor dropped in a scion tc someday I wonder if it’s of the same family..

If the Japanese automakers know ANYTHING, it is squeezing power and reliability from the inline four. The inline four in our RDX is an extremely robust and powerful little power-plant; every single person who’s sat in the passenger seat of that car is amazed at how briskly it takes off from a standstill, a great feat for a turbocharged engine (variable intake manifold + a bunch of other tricks = no turbo lag.) Also, if you have noticed, the Japanese do not do diesel well. What this 2.7liter needs, clearly, is a turbocharger.

What Toyota really needs to focus is to make hybrid more mainstream and more efficient. As it stands, comparably equipped Highlander Hybrid costs around $10,000 over regular Highlander. In addition, I find it rather ironic that Lexus hybrids are optimized for premium gasoline.

The engine’s not that impressive. Equinox’s 4 banger will make 200hp on less displacement.

I have family members who rave about getting 27mpg out of the 3.5 V6 in the RAV4 and Highlander now and the 2.4 RAV is getting low 30’s. That’s pretty damn impressive. I’ll be surprised if this new 2.7 is a mileage champ.

I’ll be surprised if this new 2.7 a mileage champ.

I’m just waiting for all the Highlanders to start waging war on each other. They’ll crash into each other, saying things like, “There can be only one!”

well it just might work if they remember that its an four cylinder not an v6 it will do fine

Not news at all….if you remember the previous generation Highlander came with a 2.4 4-cylinder.

Actually, I was disgusted when this new Highlander came out only with a V6…right away I knew “at least $35,000″ for a decently equipped Highlander. Hopefully, with this new 2.7, it may be about $27,000…still a lot though.

On an unrelated note, it’s too bad the Tacoma can’t get this “all-new” 2.7, all they have to do is turn the engine north-south. The Tacoma gets stuck with the “old” 2.7, that gets only 159 hp (versus 187 hp for this “new” Highlander 2.7).

2 much displacement 4 a 4.

Yeah, quite high……..try the Chevy Colorado/GMC Canyon….they have a 2.9 4-cylinder.

Take a look at the four that will pilot the Camry from 2009 forward. This will be THE CORE 4!
Add 29HP AND 2-3 MPG to any Rav4/Camry/Tacoma (25/33), and quite a bit of spice to Corolla XRS and Matrix.
The HL weight should knock MPG down a couple.
I would expect EPA similar to the current Camry (22/31).
DrFill

Toyota’s Hilux pickup (sold in Europe/Australia/South Africa etc.) uses a 2.7 straight four – maybe related. Not a bad engine, but woudn’t mind them bringing their diesels over.