It’s hard to tell in advance how you’ll feel about a car, but it’s great to buy one and love it so much you want to keep it for a long time. In a recent study, the Toyota Highlander Hybrid turned out to be just that kind of vehicle. Here’s what iSeeCars.com discovered and why the Highlander Hybrid has been loved.

The iSeeCars.com study

A new study from iSeeCars.com found that owners of hybrid cars seem to be more satisfied with their vehicles than the average owner, given that more original owners of hybrids keep their vehicles longer.

To come up with its data, iSeeCars.com analyzed more than 900,000 cars from 2012 and 2013 that were sold during 2020 to see how many still had their original owners.

On average, 16.8% of the vehicles analyzed were still in the possession of their original owners. Hybrid owners, though, were 1.6 times more likely to still have their vehicle of that age. Some eight-year-old hybrids did even better, being kept up to 2.2 times the average.

The Toyota Highlander Hybrid had the highest owner satisfaction

iSeeCars.com found that hybrid vehicles fill out half of the top 10 vehicles with the most satisfied owners. Toyota has five hybrid vehicles on the list, with three in the first three spots.

The Toyota Highlander Hybrid comes in first with 38% of original owners for its eight-year-old vehicles. Meanwhile, the Avalon Hybrid comes in second with 36.5%, and the Toyota Camry Hybrid is in third with 34.6%.

The rest of the top 10 are rounded out by gas-powered vehicles, with the Volkswagen Passat in fourth, the Toyota Land Cruiser in fifth, the Volkswagen Golf in sixth, the Subaru Outback in seventh, and the Honda CR-V in ninth.

SUVs with the highest owner satisfaction

SUVs as a group showed higher owner satisfaction than the overall group of vehicles. iSeeCars.com found that 17.5% of SUVs from model years 2012 and 2013 were kept by their original owners for eight years.

Four of the top 10 SUVs already appear on the overall vehicles list. The Toyota Highlander Hybrid still comes in first, and the Toyota Land Cruiser (32.7%), Subaru Outback (31.2%), and Honda CR-V (30.9%) remain as well.

They are joined by the Lexus RX 450h (29.8%), Subaru Forester (29.6%), Toyota Highlander (29.1%), Acura RDX (27.9%), Mazda CX-5 (27.2%), and Toyota Sequoia (26.3%). 

Toyota again has about half of the top 10 SUVs with the highest percentage of satisfied owners who were the original owners. That includes the hybrid Lexus RX 450h, which is the luxury version of the Toyota Highlander Hybrid.

Why customers love the Toyota Highlander Hybrid

There are many reasons why owners love their Highlander Hybrid SUVs. Brauer points out to iSeeCars that, “both the Toyota Highlander and the Toyota Sequoia have stellar reliability ratings and below-average ownership costs.”

The Highlander Hybrid won both the 2012 and 2013 Best Hybrid SUV for Families awards from U.S. News & World Report. Its highest ratings from that organization are for safety and for total cost of ownership.

This practical SUV has excellent fuel efficiency, according to U.S. News & World Report. It seats seven and has plenty of space for passengers and cargo. It also offers a nice ride and quick acceleration.

The Highlander Hybrid joins the list of popular Toyotas, hybrids, and SUVs as a vehicle that owners don’t quickly sell. With strong points across cost, reliability, safety, and space, it’s no wonder owners have wanted to keep their Toyota Highlander Hybrids for a long time.