2011 Buick Lucerne
This year drew an ordinary 49 complaints for a Buick Lucerne — the model's median is 164. What they were about is the unusual part: 6.1% of them mention addition, against 1.4% across the model's other years.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 49 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 164 |
| Involving a crash | 3 |
| Involving a fire | 3 |
| Recalls | 2 |
| NHTSA crash rating | 3/5 |
| EPA combined | 19.5 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- addition — 6.1% of this year's complaints, against 1.4% across the model's other years (4.4×).
- attempted — 6.1% of this year's complaints, against 1.6% across the model's other years (3.9×).
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
ENGINE STOPPED RUNNING WITH NO WARNING. IT WAS REPAIRED BY THE DEALER AT NO COST UNDER TECHNICAL SERVICE BULLETIN (TSB) 15-NA-051. IN ADDITION TO THE REPAIRS SPECIFIED IN THE TSB, THE DEALER HAD TO REPLACE THE REAR FUSE BOX AND REPAIR THE WIRE TO THE FUEL PUMP…
THE CAR WOULD NOT START WHEN I ATTEMPTED TO START IT TO GO TO WORK AND HAD TO BE TOWED IN FOR REPAIRS. THE FUEL PUMP WAS FOUND TO NEED TO BE REPLACED. ONE WEEK LATER THE CAR AGAIN WOULD NOT START AND HAD TO BE TOWED FOR REPAIRS. THE PROBLEM THIS TIME WAS THE R…
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 14V355000 ELECTRICAL SYSTEM Fixed free of charge.
- 10V553000 ELECTRICAL SYSTEM Fixed free of charge.
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 2011 Buick Lucerne? What happened to yours?
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