Highlander feels at home around town, amidst traffic lights and parking seekers. It's a good size for city streets and soaks up potholes and irregular pavement well. Rolling into suburbia, the Highlander fits right in. It's a natural mall-crawler, maneuverable and quick to nose into a parking slot. Steering effort is very light at low speeds, so it's easy to turn in tight quarters. It cruises well on major highways, offering good stability and a smooth, quiet ride.
Highlander deals with mountain roads like an expert speller in the early stages of a championship bee. Snow melt, muddy ruts, icy patches on shadowed curves were easily handled by a 4WD V6 model. On a meandering backroad, the Highlander cut up hills through eight inches of newly fallen snow like a snowplow on a rescue mission.
Highlander is intended primarily as a highway and street vehicle with all-weather capability. It is not meant for boulder bashing and serious off-road driving. That said, we found the Highlander more capable in demanding situations than Toyota publicizes. After all, Toyota has the 4Runner for serious off-road duty.
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