2009 Buick Lucerne
This year drew an ordinary 128 complaints for a Buick Lucerne — the model's median is 164. What they were about is the unusual part: 44.5% of them mention relay, against 16.3% across the model's other years.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 128 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 164 |
| Involving a crash | 6 |
| Involving a fire | 17 |
| Recalls | 2 |
| EPA combined | 20 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- relay — 44.5% of this year's complaints, against 16.3% across the model's other years (2.7×).
- burned — 17.2% of this year's complaints, against 5.8% across the model's other years (3×). Owners wrote it as: burned, relay burned, stranded, control vehicle.
- burnt — 12.5% of this year's complaints, against 2.4% across the model's other years (5.1×). Owners wrote it as: burnt, off road, returning, allowing.
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
FUEL PUMP RELAY BURNED OUT 3 TIMES IN LESS THAN A MONTH, AND THE CAR WOULD NOT START, CAUSING THE FUSE BLOCK TO BURN. THE FIRST TIME, THE VEHICLE WAS PARKED IN THE GARAGE, AND WOULDNT START ONE MORNING, CAUSING ME TO HAVE TO CALL OFF WORK. THE NEXT TIME, VEHIC…
FUSE BLOCK AND RELAY BURNED UP UNDER REAR SEAT. CAR WOULDN'T START SEVERAL TIMES. AFTER CAR BECAME WARM, IT WOULDN'T START ANYMORE. IT ACTUALLY BURNED THE FOAM AROUND THE SEATS.
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 14V355000 ELECTRICAL SYSTEM Fixed free of charge.
- 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 2009 Buick Lucerne? What happened to yours?
Loading comments…