2019 Hyundai Sonata
This year drew an ordinary 157 complaints for a Hyundai Sonata — the model's median is 425. What they were about is the unusual part: 8.9% of them mention night, against 3.2% across the other years of this generation.
Last year of its generation. This Hyundai Sonata ran from 2015 to 2019, so it had the whole run for its faults to be found and fixed. Last years are usually the most sorted of a generation.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 157 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 425 |
| Involving a crash | 8 |
| Involving a fire | 6 |
| Recalls | 0 |
| NHTSA crash rating | 5/5 |
| EPA combined | 28.5 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- night — 8.9% of this year's complaints, against 3.2% across the other years of this generation (2.8×). Owners wrote it as: night, beam headlights, headlight, driving night.
- spot — 7% of this year's complaints, against 1.8% across the other years of this generation (3.8×). Owners wrote it as: spot, detection, blind spot.
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
while driving at night at various speeds with the low beam headlights activated, there was a shadow reflecting on the roadway. The driver’s side headlight illumination was distorted. Additionally, it was difficult to keep the vehicle on the highway. There were…
CATEGORY: POTENTIAL FATAL. LOW BEAM HEADLIGHTS ON DRIVERS SIDE HAS A BLIND SPOT APPROXIMATELY 30 FEET FROM FRONT OF VEHICLE OBSCURING PEDESTRIANS AND ON COMING TRAFFIC FROM THE OPERATOR. BLIND SPOT IS APPROXIMATELY 5 FEET WIDE BY 15 FEET LONG AND ALSO WITH A M…
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
How this was worked out
Every year of the Hyundai Sonata 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 2019 Hyundai Sonata? What happened to yours?
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