2007 Buick Lucerne
This year drew an ordinary 164 complaints for a Buick Lucerne — the model's median is 128. What they were about is the unusual part: 8.5% of them mention gauge, against 2.3% across the model's other years.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 164 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 128 |
| Involving a crash | 21 |
| Recalls | 4 |
| EPA combined | 19 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- gauge — 8.5% of this year's complaints, against 2.3% across the model's other years (3.7×). Owners wrote it as: gauge, odometer, windows, see speedometer.
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
CANNOT READ THE ODOMETER OR FUEL GAUGE WHEN DRIVING IN SUNLIGHT. IT IS COMPLETELY DARK WHEN IT IS SUNNY OUTSIDE. DEALER SUGGESTS TINTING WINDOWS?? PANEL HAS BEEN REPLACED, BUT STILL SAME PROBLEM. IS BUICK GOING TO DO ANY THING ABOUT THIS??
WHEN THE VEHICLE IS IN A DARK AREA, THE INSTRUMENT PANEL ILLUMINATES. WHEN THE VEHICLE IS IN A WELL LIT AREA, THE SPEEDOMETER, ODOMETER, AND GEAR SHIFT GAUGES ARE DISPLAYED. THE CONTACT TOOK THE VEHICLE TO THE DEALER AND THEY STATED THAT IT WAS A [VIN] DEFECT.…
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.
- 07V468000 STRUCTURE
- 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 2007 Buick Lucerne? What happened to yours?
Loading comments…