I love toyota, I have 4 of them, a 02 camry, a 23 tundra, and a 23 mk5 supra. But I cannot understand why they had to make remote start a paid subscription service, and at $8 a month? With everything being a paid subscription now, it's ridiculous. Something like should not be allowed, you've bought the car, eventually paid it off and the car is completely your property but you still cannot have all the features unless you keep coughing up money, even though you paid 10-20% more than the cars retail price through interest, unless you paid it in full when you got it. If this continues on without any push back legally, who knows what they can think they can get away with in the future. Like paid subscription apple carplay, remote connect. This needs to be stopped.

Just realized Toyota’s “remote start” is basically a subscription trap.

My Sienna doesn’t even have a remote start button on the key fob — once the free trial ends, remote start is gone unless you pay monthly.

I get charging for premium services, but locking basic functionality behind a subscription feels shady. If I had known this before buying, I would’ve gone with a Honda.

Lesson learned: probably my last Toyota.

My ability to remotely start my RAV4 expired! I need to subscribe to a Connected Services plan if I want to keep using remote start from the app.

I realize this may have been written somewhere, but I never saw it or even Has thought to question it. I had no idea this was a subscription. When I bought the car, no one said anything about “one year free and then you pay to keep the feature working.” I thought it was a feature of the vehicle that I was buying, not a piece of software that stops working unless you keep paying Toyota every year. I already paid for the car. The software is in the car. The button is there in the app. I assumed it was mine. The fact that the company can disable something I thought I purchased feels wrong. At some point this should be illegal.

This has honestly made me rethink buying another Toyota. There are a few other things that have been annoying since day one. The backup camera is almost useless in the rain. It gets covered by water immediately even though it has some body overhang above it. I have never had a car where the camera fogged and smeared this badly. The sound system is also the worst I have ever had in any vehicle I have owned. I do not even expect premium audio, just something that does not sound flat and muddy. And every time I start the car the screen loads that Toyota Connection page and I have to tap out of it, which gets old fast.

I bought this car out of necessity and I kind of trusted Toyota, but subscription creep is getting out of control. If a feature is built into the car, it should stay with the car. I should not have to rent something that came with the vehicle on day one.

Has this happened to anyone else? Does anyone feel like this is crossing a line?

I have been getting close to pulling the trigger on a new Grand Highlander, and I just can’t get over the fact that they want me to pay $15/mo for remote start (packaged with other features I don’t want or need). Everyone I ask seems to say just pay it and move on. Im surprised as consumers that we are wiling to accept this as normal.

Is everyone still buying these cars and wiling to pay this fee? Am I the crazy one wanting to look at other brands simply to avoid this?

As I have looked into this, you can no longer get *just* remote start, you have to *bundle* it and the entry level is $15 per month and that gets you the remote start and the ability to stream you apple music or amazon music - for which you must already have an account that you pay for. Rather a bait and switch as far as I can see. When I purchased the car one year ago, I was told it was $80 per year or $10 per month. I think I was willing to shell out the $80 to be able to remotely start my car and for the safety measures included in the app - vehicle unlocked, etc. But I am NOT willing to pay $15 per month to do that and have a music app that I can already use via bluetooth. Shame on Toyota.

XP on hatchback

Just a heads up. Toyota is now locking their remote start through a sub service. 2023 highlander xle and we gotta pay for fucking remote start.

Hello all! I am currently considering buying a 2024 Corolla Hatchback. Does remote start need a subscription a Connected Service plan? If not, do y'all believe that a subscription is worth it, and how much are they? Also, do they vary based upon the different Corolla Hatchback trims?

I bought a 2025 XSE last year, this was never mentioned to me during buying. Had I known I would’ve looked for something different. This bothers me so much.

I just rolled off the lot with a 2026 limited. From what I’m reading online, the keyfob remote start will only work with an active Toyota connect subscription. Is this real life?

EDIT: funny enough, apparently the server is down for the app and I can't log in. So even a paying customer can't remote start their car because it's behind an app connected to their servers. So insane.

EDIT2: Here’s a summary of the discussion. Pretty embarrassing for Toyota.

1. ⁠Remote start is behind a paywall. Seems to depend on the dealer how much free time you get. I got two years and then it’s $80/year.

2. ⁠According to a few people here, they can activate remote start with their keyfob. I have tried the three button press 20+ times at varying distances on my 2026 and have never gotten it to remote start from the keyfob

3. ⁠If Toyota’s servers go down and you can’t access the app, you cannot remote start your own vehicle.

4. ⁠Remote start doesn’t actually heat up the seats or the thermostat.

5. ⁠After a successful remote start, the car turns off when you open the door and you have to re-start the car when you get in.

Thinking of getting a new Toyota but the thought of having to pay a subscription for remote start is BS. Wondering how many out there $ for it and why?

I just passed my one year anniversary of owning my Highlander and Toyota wants to charge me $15/month to be able to lock/unlock and start my vehicle. That is the most ridiculous fee I have ever seen. For that price, I can get 2 TV streaming services or a cheap gym membership. For just a little bit more, I can get a music streaming service to listen to millions of songs for *6* people in my household. I pay Ring like $50/year to monitor my house and send me videos every time someone is at the front door.

This is absurd. I don't mind paying for services. I get it. This is beyond ridiculous.

Of course I am not going to pay for this!

I have a 2025 camry se. I love the car even though I overpaid for it. My trial for remote connect ran out, and now they want to bundle it with drive anywhere.

15 dollars a month because they want to force their crappy navigation subscription down my throat. Its not as bad as BMW charging monthly for heated seats....but its still ridiculous. As much as I love the car, I know I'll be looking harder at this type of thing next time I buy a car.

I’ve been happily forking over $80 a year for remote connect on my Tacoma. Just got a 2025 rav4 and they want $180 a year for the cheapest package that offers remote connect. Y’all are absolutely 100% straight jacket crazy offering that as the cheapest plan.

Just curious to know if 2018 and beyond Toyota models actually have it now.

It’s absurd that my almost $80K 2023 SUV requires a subscription to use remote services that are already installed. Meanwhile, my 2021 base model Mustang, which cost a fraction of what the SUV did, has all of these features working perfectly—no extra charge. To top it off, the key fob for the more expensive car is atrocious. It struggles to work through walls in my own house! How does a cheaper car manage to get it right, but an SUV that costs nearly double can’t?

Rant incoming.

We bought our RAV4 hybrid (2025, I love the vehicle itself mind you) last year and I wasn’t fully made aware that there are buttons and services that would straight up be unavailable to me unless I agree to cough up more money every month. Wtf? Why do we tolerate this nonsense? What can’t we purchase a car which includes all its goods and services? SiriusXM gets a slight pass. But losing my mobile remote start/pre warming, drive connect maps and voice commands just seems crazy.

This is my first modern car, so I was unaware of the tomfuckery that went on with buying in the new generation. I already miss the simple days, being back the cd player if they’re going to waste space with stuff I can’t use.

Rant over.

Recently converted from an all Ford family (14 Escape and newer F150/F250) to all Toyota (24 GHighlander Platinum HybridMax for me and 24 Sienna Platinum for the wife) so I'm new to the Toyota tech and maybe I'm missing something but...

Is it just me or does the remote start kind of suck? Especially for a service that I'm supposed to pay for?

The fob sequence is finicky. The fob range is abysmal. The app can be a bit glitchy. The 10 minute timer feels inadequate this far north.

And that's all annoying but worse yet, it doesn't seem to really do anything. It doesn't turn on heated seat, heated steering wheel, or front/rear/mirror defrosters. The climate control doesn't even really seem to warm up.

Am I suffering from some malfunction or is the remote start just bad?

Not sure the point paying $80 when I could just walk to my window and do it.