2012 Buick Lacrosse
This year drew an ordinary 205 complaints for a Buick Lacrosse — the model's median is 169. What they were about is the unusual part: 12.7% of them mention loss, against 4.6% across the model's other years.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 205 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 169 |
| Involving a crash | 10 |
| Involving a fire | 4 |
| Recalls | 5 |
| NHTSA crash rating | 5/5 |
| EPA combined | 21 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- loss — 12.7% of this year's complaints, against 4.6% across the model's other years (2.8×). Owners wrote it as: loss, generator control, dropped, engine power.
- own — 8.3% of this year's complaints, against 1.9% across the model's other years (4.4×). Owners wrote it as: own, almost hit.
- help — 9.8% of this year's complaints, against 3.6% across the model's other years (2.7×). Owners wrote it as: help, please help, car back, scared.
Words owners used for the same problem are counted together, so a fault written four different ways is measured once. Grouped by which complaints they appear in, not by a list anyone wrote in advance.
What owners wrote
Hello my car is stalling out and the stabilìtrak lights comes on with trak symbol. Car does not crank back up until the next day.. it keeps doing this after several days. Im scared to drive this car with the stalling when driving it... PLEASE help me fix this…
ALL POWER FEATURES SHUT DOWN WHILE DRIVING ON STREET. LOSS PARTIAL CONTROL OF STEERING, BRAKING POWER WAS REDUCED SIGNIFICANTLY AND ENGINE SHUT OFF COMPLETELY.
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 14V447000 SEATS Fixed free of charge.
- 13V173000 ELECTRICAL SYSTEM Fixed free of charge.
- 11V404000 ELECTRONIC STABILITY CONTROL (ESC) Fixed free of charge.
- 20V764000 SUSPENSION Fixed free of charge.
- 21V00F000 SUSPENSION Fixed free of charge.
How this was worked out
Every year of the Buick Lacrosse was compared against its own history rather than against other cars, which removes popularity and age from the answer — a common car draws more complaints at equal reliability, and an older one has had longer to accumulate them. A year is flagged when it drew at least 2.5× this model's median and at least 50 complaints.
This is a fault record, not a review. Nobody files a federal complaint to say the car was fine, so it shows what tends to go wrong — not whether owners liked it, and not whether it is a good car.
Source: NHTSA complaints, recalls and investigations, retrieved . Look this vehicle up directly on NHTSA's site to check anything here.
Own a 2012 Buick Lacrosse? What happened to yours?
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