Hybrid Highlander is not a big Prius

Things that are difficulter on a Hybrid Highlander vs a Prius (2000s era)

• You can change spark pugs pretty easily on a Prius, on a Highlander V6 half the spark plugs are facing the firewall and hard to get to
• Highlander requires a timing belt replacement every 90k or so, this is >$1000 job at a dealership if you throw in new water pump etc. Hefty job to DIY. Prius has nothing like this.
  
• Highlanders are not filling up the junk yards like Prius, fewer were made, finding parts is a lot harder
• The engine is a lot more complex. Many had a big honking v6 , not the cute little atkinson cycle 4 banger from the Prius that you can almost reach your arms around and cuddle.
  
• The engine is buried under the Inverter, complicating a lot of repairs. For example changing the Thermostat is scheduled for a full days job because you have to remove the entire inverter assembly and a lot of other stuff to.
  
• Mechanics + Dealerships do not have much experience with these things. 99% of 4wd or AWD vehicles have a mechanical transmission between front engine, front wheels, and back wheels, this is what mechanics are used to dealing with. The Hybrid Highlander AWD has an electric motor in the back and no prop shaft and no transfer case. The rear motor, if it breaks, pretty much needs to be replaced because nobody knows how to fix them (Scotty Kilmer has a video about this )
  
• Highlanders had some recalls on inverters, where the thing basically dies on the highway just out of warranty over 100k, even with perfect service record. Lots of internet threads from the 2009-2011ish time frame talking about this. Nothing quite that bad on the Prius that I have seen.
  
• Even changing a tire on a highlander is alot more of a job than a Prius, you have to take apart a bunch of panels to get to the spare, lower it from the car, and its massive in size compared to a lil' ol prius wheel.
  
• Somehow everything on the dashboard is 5 years behind the Prius even from the same model years, like the miniscule rear view cam, the climate control where you can't even set a target temperature, the not that good stereo sound, lack of details compared to Prius MFD, etc.
  
• The battery situation is odd, apparently Highlander batteries last much much longer, but to find a replacement its more expensive since the battery shell is more complex than the Prius.
• The gas savings are not 2x. Recall the entire point of the program that evolved into Prius was to double fuel efficiency in a car. Well, you aren't doubling a gasoline Highlander efficiency in a HyHi. Maybe you are going 1.25x on a really good day,

Basically, the Highlander is a vehicle designed for gasoline, which they crammed a hybrid into. It works, its cool, its interesting, but its not a DIY friendly little zip-around car like the Prius. It's a serious, big SUV with serious big SUV problems, and on top of that, it's rare. Not only are parts hard to find, advice is hard to find too. There are probably 5 videos for every DIY maintenance job on a Prius, there are 1 message board post if you are lucky on Hybrid Highlander, which you will only find after wading through 9 other posts about ICE Highlanders.

It it still great? IMHO yes, but its' just not anything like a Prius, about the most similar thing is the fact that they both have hybrid badges.