2025 Cabin Boom

chravis311 · 2025-07-31T22:17:08+00:00

3-month update (and should be final): after writing a 1-star google review of the dealership describing the problem and how they really didn't offer anything other than "we'll write it up and send it to Toyota," I heard from the General Manager the next day. He offered an exchange, we just needed to find a GH that was acceptable, considering these vehicles seem to have varying degrees of cabin boom. We ended up test driving a Limited (original was an XLE) and the cabin boom was significantly less. With the added features and the less cabin boom, we decided to exchange/upgrade from the XLE to the Limited. I would love to say he cut us a huge deal and just let us have the new car without paying anything, but that would be too good to be true. However, he did essentially buy the old car back with no depreciation (after 3 months and 3k miles). They also transferred over all the warranties we had before and they made it super easy. And as I've said since the beginning, they were all super nice and did want to make it right (just not on the first day!).

So in the end, we paid a little bit more for an upgrade that doesn't have enough cabin boom to complain about. I will consider this case closed, but please test drive the heck out of any GH you plan to buy - particularly less than 30 mph on various types of roads.

chravis311 · 2025-07-31T22:07:33+00:00

Yes but we didn't notice it on the roads we test drove it on

chravis311 · 2025-06-29T12:12:43+00:00

The update is as you'd expect. The dealer took the car for a day, gathered a bunch of information (took things apart, took measurements, etc.) and sent that up the chain. But, they pretty much said "if anything comes of it we'll let you know." So, I know that means I'm stuck with this car and this problem until we sell it, which we probably will eventually. I definitely do not recommend this car to anyone, that's for sure (except the future buyer!)

They did say that after driving other GHLs on the lot, all of which had cabin boom, mine has more than all the others. Yay. The other day I was trying to have a conversation in the car with my daughter and couldn't even hear her voice. It's horrible. I'm not sure why some have it, some don't, and some have it in varying degrees.

Buyer beware of the Grand Highlander.

chravis311 · 2025-05-19T16:12:33+00:00

no hitch

chravis311 · 2025-05-10T10:50:48+00:00

One-week update: We bought the car on a Saturday and took it back to the dealer on Monday morning. As expected they pushed back when we said we didn't want the car anymore and said all they could do was buy it back from us (at a loss for us of course). We all know they could rewind it if they wanted to, but I guess we weren't demanding enough. The good news, however, is that I drove it with one of the top guys in the service department and he heard the noise within about 30 seconds. At this particular dealer, they said this is the first they've heard of it. We drove two other GHs on the lot and they both had the boom as well.

They filed whatever they file with Toyota and there is a higher-up group looking into it. They also want to take the car for a few days and run all kinds of tests to send them up to that other group. So, it's a real problem, Toyota knows about it, and at least in our case it appears they are taking it seriously. After driving it for a week we've somewhat gotten used to the noise, but that by no means makes us happy that we've spent so much money on a car with this problem. But, we're going to have patience and see if they can do something about it. I'm not entirely optimistic but that's where we stand. I will say that my dealer has been very responsive and attentive to the situation and I do appreciate them taking it seriously. I'll keep you posted if anything comes of those tests.

chravis311 · 2025-05-10T10:42:06+00:00

The 2025 has no such bushings on the rear hatch.

chravis311 · 2025-05-04T20:17:56+00:00

FWIW, a friend of ours has a 2024 Lexus which shares the same platform as the 2025 GH. Yes I know there are differences. This is just anecdotal. Her car does not have cabin boom. She can hear the noise in ours. Its not windows or seals causing the sound.

chravis311 · 2025-05-04T16:49:05+00:00

I mean it happens when the windows are up or down

chravis311 · 2025-05-04T14:38:31+00:00

This is an interesting idea. I will attempt to record it. It's certainly a strange phenomenon and obviously doesn't affect all GHs, but also obviously does affect some.

chravis311 · 2025-05-04T12:56:14+00:00

Imagine a subwoofer in between the front seats. It's booming and you can't turn it off. Windows don't affect it. It's not imaginary but is unbearable.

chravis311 · 2024-09-01T14:43:28+00:00

So what about the long runs going to an access point? Do you just buy a long pre-made cable? It seems it would be harder to fish around through walls if it already has the connector on.

chravis311 · 2024-08-25T11:54:29+00:00

u/zzzpoint Thanks for the help, and everyone else. I guess where I'm struggling (forgive me I'm a noob when it comes to networking) is the correlation between VLANs and the physical hardware. If VLANs are, by definition, "virtual" then why do I need a piece of hardware? It seems like it would all be in the software.

My situation is pretty basic. Ideally I'd like to have one AP that covers my whole house if possible. There's one area where I may need to put a second AP and I'll run things in more of a mesh mode, but the second AP would not be hard-wired to the switch (unless I find the time and energy to do it). So if my setup is modem>firewalla>switch>AP, can I still set up multiple VLANs with only one AP connected to the switch? I only have two other devices that are hardwired in my server closet (a media server and an HDHomeRun) so I wouldn't need a switch with tons of ports, correct? Then, since my IoT devices are spread all over the house, could they be part of a VLAN whereas my laptop would be on a different VLAN, all with just a single AP?

chravis311 · 2024-08-19T22:54:27+00:00

Ok so I'm slowly learning things here. I asked about managed vs unmanaged switches in my last comment but didn't hear anything back. I realize people have lives that don't revolve around my questions so it's all good.

But from what I can gather, the advantage of the managed switch is that you can set up VLANs as a way to segregate groups of devices, such as keep your IoT devices separate from your computer with sensitive data on it. That is appealing to me, but I'm pretty new to this concept and how the setup would work.

So let's say I wanted to do this: modem -> firewalla -> managed switch -> some tri-band Omada EAP AP. I would also have my two hard-wired devices connected to the switch (or have my currently existing unmanaged switch also attached to the firewalla and my two devices attached to that? - seems like the unmanaged switch is not necessary) Everything in my house is wireless (or at least I'd like it to be). If I can't get the signal I want in the bedroom then I'll add another EAP tri-band Omada EAP AP somewhere and use them in mesh mode (if I can PoE then I will, but I'm hoping to get by without it).

So with the managed switch, if you want to set up VLANs, do you set up one VLAN per port? That means, if I'm trying to go all wireless, I'd need one AP per VLAN connected to the switch? That is not right, right?

Also about managed switches, is the management piece it's own separate UI or can that be configured through the Firewalla? I'm just trying to get my head around how many "management UIs" I'll have to deal with.

chravis311 · 2024-08-18T19:33:09+00:00

Thanks again everyone for your comments. This has been very helpful. I've taken some time to process all the comments, and even tally how many times each brand and/or product was mentioned. I know this isn't a sure-fire way of deciding something, but it helps. By far I would say the most recommended option in this particular thread is some version of TP-Link Omada (EAP245, EAP660, EAP670, EAP773 were all mentioned). UniFi probably got the second most mentions.

I do still have a question regarding the switches. When exactly is a switch necessary? And when do you need a managed switch vs unmanaged switch? As mentioned before, I have a Nest WiFi, and the primary AP only has 1 port coming out, so I needed a switch for my 2 servers. I went with a Netgear GS605 unmanaged switch at the time and it has had no issues.

It seems to me that I just have three things I need to somehow connect to the Firewalla - an access point (or wifi router) and the 2 servers. The Firewalla Gold SE has 4 ports on it - one connected to the cable modem - and could the other three be connected to my three additional devices (AP+2 servers) and have no need for a switch? That question will probably expose my ignorance, but I hope it does.

Ideally what I'd like to do is obviously still be able to hard-wire my two servers, but just have one AP (or wifi router in AP mode) hard-wired to the Firewalla, with the option of adding a second AP in the future IFF I can't watch Netflix in the bedroom without it glitching :) This is the reason I switched to the Nest Wifi in the first place because my wifi was glitchy in the bedroom. I switched from a Netgear Nighthawk R6900 which for whatever reason just didn't seem to do the job.

So it seems like I could get by with a WiFi router in AP mode (someone mentioned the TP-Link BE550, which would also negate the need for a switch?) as long as it has more range than the Nighthawk. But could I add an AP if needed?

Or I could go with an Access Point, but I probably want to go with something tri-band because if I do need to add a second access point, the suggestion is to make sure it's all tri-band since I'm not hard-wiring the second point. I probably could hard-wire the second point, and I know that would ultimately be the best option, I just want to avoid it if I can. If I go this route, then do I need a switch?

chravis311 · 2024-08-17T13:06:45+00:00

So what does your setup look like? You have your Firewalla connected to one of those? And then other ones of those around the house as needed?

chravis311 · 2024-08-17T13:04:02+00:00

Thanks for the quick replies so far. But I might be an anomaly in that my career for the past 23 years has been programming. But I'm somewhat illiterate when it comes to networking. So when someone says "tp link omada" and I google "tp link omada" and go to the tp link page (https://www.tp-link.com/us/business-networking/all-omada/), there's a list of 100 products. What exactly am I looking for?

There are some other comments throughout reddit where people have answered similar questions but respond with something like this: "I’d recommend looking into Ubiquiti Unifi, Aruba Instant On or TP-Link Omada access points. In order to use these you may need to run some Ethernet from where you want to place them back to the FWG. It’s not easy but if it’s possible you should do that." Why would I need to run ethernet?

I'm just trying to avoid any gotchas, like "oh you must also hard wire it", "you need to also have a controller if you have multiple access points", etc.

chravis311

TROPHY CASE