2019 Toyota Avalon
This year drew an ordinary 68 complaints for a Toyota Avalon — the model's median is 53. What they were about is the unusual part: 23.5% of them mention fuel, against 0.5% across the model's other years.
First year of a new generation. The Toyota Avalon was redesigned for 2019. A first year carries problems nobody has found yet, and they are found by the people who buy it — which is worth knowing before you become one of them.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 68 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 53 |
| Involving a crash | 4 |
| Recalls | 4 |
| NHTSA crash rating | 5/5 |
| EPA combined | 25.5 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- fuel — 23.5% of this year's complaints, against 0.5% across the model's other years (47.8×).
- malfunction — 25% of this year's complaints, against 7.5% across the model's other years (3.3×). Owners wrote it as: malfunction, software, keeps, monitoring.
- gasoline — 10.3% of this year's complaints, against 0.5% across the model's other years (19.4×). Owners wrote it as: gasoline, fuel system, system gasoline, diagnosed nor.
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
BOTH BLIND SPOT MONITORING AND CROSS TRAFFIC ALERT - MALFUNCTION ALERTS, KEEPS POPPING UP REGULARLY. MULTIPLE TRIPS TO THE DEALER, WITH NO RESOLUTION. TOYOTA INDICATES THAT THIS IS A PROB AND ARE WORKING ON AN SOLUTION. IT IS NOT CLEAR WHAT THAT IS. SEEMS LIKE…
Recurring issue with blind spot and rear cross traffic malfunction alerts. Toyota had issued a service bulletin for this concern. Dealer had to reprogram the module under part: 39151 T-SB-0034-19. CODE C1AB4 and C1AB5.
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 20V682000 FUEL SYSTEM, GASOLINE Fixed free of charge.
- 20V012000 FUEL SYSTEM, GASOLINE Fixed free of charge.
- 18V685000 ELECTRICAL SYSTEM Fixed free of charge.
- 19V244000 EQUIPMENT Fixed free of charge.
How this was worked out
Every year of the Toyota Avalon 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 2019 Toyota Avalon? What happened to yours?
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