2005 Buick Lacrosse
This year drew an ordinary 315 complaints for a Buick Lacrosse — the model's median is 169. What they were about is the unusual part: 22.9% of them mention headlights, against 6.5% across the model's other years.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 315 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 169 |
| Involving a crash | 7 |
| Involving a fire | 6 |
| Recalls | 5 |
| EPA combined | 20.5 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- headlights — 22.9% of this year's complaints, against 6.5% across the model's other years (3.5×). Owners wrote it as: headlights, beam, night, beams.
- column — 8.3% of this year's complaints, against 1.6% across the model's other years (5.2×). Owners wrote it as: column, steering column, clunking, noise steering.
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
THE LOW BEAM HEADLIGHTS FAILED TO ILLUMINATE. THE VEHICLE WAS TAKEN TO AN INDEPENDENT MECHANIC, WHO DIAGNOSED THAT NUMBER: 35 FUSE MELTED INTO THE FUSE BOX, WHICH NEEDED TO BE REPLACED. THE [VIN] WAS NOT NOTIFIED OF THE FAILURE. THE FAILURE MILEAGE WAS 95,000.
THE LOW BEAM HEADLIGHTS WERE ACTIVATED WHILE DRIVING VARIOUS SPEEDS AND [VIN] FAILED TO ILLUMINATE. THE HIGH BEAMS WERE ACTIVATED IN ORDER TO CONTINUE DRIVING. THE VIN WAS INCLUDED IN A RECALL FOR THE EXTERIOR LIGHTING; HOWEVER, A TEMPORARY REMEDY WAS PERFORME…
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 15V519000 EXTERIOR LIGHTING Fixed free of charge.
- 14V355000 ELECTRICAL SYSTEM Fixed free of charge.
- 09E005000 STEERING Fixed free of charge.
- 05V156000 SERVICE BRAKES, HYDRAULIC Fixed free of charge.
- 06V417000 AIR BAGS
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 2005 Buick Lacrosse? What happened to yours?
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