2008 Buick Lucerne
This year drew an ordinary 218 complaints for a Buick Lucerne — the model's median is 128. What they were about is the unusual part: 8.7% of them mention burned, against 0.3% across the model's other years.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 218 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 128 |
| Involving a crash | 13 |
| Involving a fire | 26 |
| Recalls | 3 |
| EPA combined | 18 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- burned — 8.7% of this year's complaints, against 0.3% across the model's other years (28.8×).
- crank — 6.4% of this year's complaints, against 1.8% across the model's other years (3.5×).
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
WITHIN THE LAST MONTH, MY CAR HAS BURNED THOUGH 3 FUEL PUMP RELAYS. ONE CONNECTION IS BUBBLING UP IN A CERTAIN SPOT. THE FUSE BOX IS HOT TO THE TOUCH, AND A GLOVE WAS NEEDED TO PULL THE FUEL RELAY OUT AND THE BUBBLING IS NOW APPARENT ON THE FUSE BOX ITSELF. I…
CAR WOULD CRANK OVER BUT WOULD NOT START. HAD FUEL PUMP AND BURNT RELAY REPLACED AND AND AN HOUR LATER THE CAR FUEL RELAY FAILED DUE TO OVERHEATING.
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 14V355000 ELECTRICAL SYSTEM Fixed free of charge.
- 08V441000 ELECTRICAL SYSTEM Fixed free of charge.
- 10V240000 ELECTRICAL SYSTEM
How this was worked out
Every year of the Buick Lucerne 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 2008 Buick Lucerne? What happened to yours?
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