2020 GMC Terrain
This year drew an ordinary 189 complaints for a GMC Terrain — the model's median is 151. What they were about is the unusual part: 9% of them mention owners, against 2% across the other years of this generation.
Generation 2 of the GMC Terrain, which began in 2018. Everything below compares this year against the others in that generation, not against a different car wearing the same name.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 189 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 151 |
| Involving a crash | 7 |
| Involving a fire | 2 |
| Recalls | 2 |
| NHTSA crash rating | 5/5 |
| EPA combined | 25 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- owners — 9% of this year's complaints, against 2% across the other years of this generation (4.6×). Owners wrote it as: owners, customers, product, dealership called.
- stop vehicle — 6.9% of this year's complaints, against 1.1% across the other years of this generation (6.1×). Owners wrote it as: stop vehicle, ended.
- similar — 7.4% of this year's complaints, against 2% across the other years of this generation (3.6×). Owners wrote it as: similar, investigate.
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
Vacuum pump failure causing sudden and unexpected hard brake pedal and loss of braking coming off the highway. Ended up catastrophic engine failure. This is the SECOND incident with this vehicle of the exact same problem. GMC refuses to address this issue and…
Incident happened August 9, 2020. Brakes suddenly stiffened and unable to stop vehicle. There were no warning signs or indicators. Thank goodness I was going at a lower speed and was able to coast into an area to stop. Ended up being the vacuum pump. This need…
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 20V668000 POWER TRAIN Fixed free of charge.
- 23V339000 CHILD SEAT Fixed free of charge.
How this was worked out
Every year of the GMC Terrain 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 2020 GMC Terrain? What happened to yours?
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