2015 Buick Lacrosse
This year drew an ordinary 87 complaints for a Buick Lacrosse — the model's median is 189. What they were about is the unusual part: 34.5% of them mention steering, against 12.7% across the model's other years.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 87 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 189 |
| Involving a crash | 10 |
| Recalls | 3 |
| NHTSA crash rating | 5/5 |
| EPA combined | 21 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- steering — 34.5% of this year's complaints, against 12.7% across the model's other years (2.7×).
- turn — 21.8% of this year's complaints, against 7.6% across the model's other years (2.9×).
- seat — 13.8% of this year's complaints, against 5.3% across the model's other years (2.6×).
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
My wife was driving and went to turn the vehicle and the steering locked up momentarily. She drove directly home a block away and pulled into the garage. When attempting to take the car for service it would not turn in either direction.
POWER STEERING SERVICE SOON WARNING COMES ON AND POWER STEERING IS LOST. GENERAL MOTORS HAS BEEN NOTIFIED AND DEALER HAS RESET COMPUTER. CONTINUES TO FAIL. EXTREMELY DIFFICULT TO STEER WHEN THIS HAPPENS. HAPPENS AT SLOW SPEEDS ON CITY STREETS AND WHILE TURNING…
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 16V651000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
- 17V437000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
- 15V666000 AIR BAGS 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 2015 Buick Lacrosse? What happened to yours?
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