2018 GMC Terrain
This year drew an ordinary 216 complaints for a GMC Terrain — the model's median is 151. What they were about is the unusual part: 8.3% of them mention radio, against 1.1% across the other years of this generation.
First year of a new generation. The GMC Terrain was redesigned for 2018. A first year carries problems nobody has found yet, and they are found by the people who buy it — which is worth knowing before you become one of them.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 216 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 151 |
| Involving a crash | 14 |
| Involving a fire | 1 |
| Recalls | 5 |
| NHTSA crash rating | 4/5 |
| EPA combined | 27 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- radio — 8.3% of this year's complaints, against 1.1% across the other years of this generation (7.4×). Owners wrote it as: radio, connected, calls, radio screen.
- buick — 6.5% of this year's complaints, against 1.7% across the other years of this generation (3.8×). Owners wrote it as: buick, buick gmc, terrain driving.
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 infotainment system will just randomly start going haywire and when it happens, you cannot use the touchscreen. It will try to randomly delete app icons such as the camera, it will try to delete connected phones, it will try to delete radio favorites and i…
WHEN DRIVING DOWNHILL, THE VEHICLE STALLED AND WOULD NOT ACCELERATE. THERE WERE NO WARNING INDICATORS ILLUMINATED. THE CONTACT PULLED THE VEHICLE OVER AND HAD IT TOWED TO ANCHOR BUICK GMC (1 AUTOMOTIVE BLVD, ELKTON, MD 21921, (443) 406-4623) WHERE IT WAS DIAGN…
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 18V340000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
- 18V576000 SERVICE BRAKES, HYDRAULIC Fixed free of charge.
- 18V358000 FUEL SYSTEM, GASOLINE Fixed free of charge.
- 20V668000 POWER TRAIN Fixed free of charge.
- 17V516000 POWER TRAIN Fixed free of charge.
How this was worked out
Every year of the GMC Terrain 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 2018 GMC Terrain? What happened to yours?
Loading comments…