2009 BUICK LUCERNE — Complaint #1476568
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about ELECTRICAL SYSTEM:STARTER ASSEMBLY:RELAY filed June 18, 2018
NHTSA complaint #1476568 (ODI reference 11102438) concerns a 2009 BUICK LUCERNE and was filed on June 18, 2018. The owner reports the failure occurred on May 1, 2018. The vehicle had 78,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Pennsylvania based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as electrical system:starter assembly:relay, one of NHTSA's standardized taxonomy codes used to group defect patterns across make, model, and year.
The filer flagged the following severity indicators: crash: no, fire: no, injuries: 0, fatalities: 0. No crash, fire, or fatality was associated with this report, which places it in the early-warning stream rather than the priority-review stream. Because a VIN was supplied, this complaint is tied to a specific vehicle and not just a model-year cohort.
Individual complaints are consumer-submitted and unverified by NHTSA engineers — the agency's role at this stage is to collect, index, and make them searchable. What matters for federal action is the pattern: when many owners of the same BUICK LUCERNE cohort independently describe similar electrical system:starter assembly:relay failures, defect investigators have grounds to open a PE and request manufacturer data. Related filings for the same vehicle and component appear below, and the detail page for the full 2009 BUICK LUCERNE shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
TL* THE CONTACT OWNS A 2009 BUICK LUCERNE. WHILE DRIVING 65 MPH, THE VEHICLE LOST POWER WITHOUT WARNING. THE VEHICLE WAS TAKEN TO AN INDEPENDENT MECHANIC AND IT WAS DIAGNOSED THAT AN UNKNOWN SOURCE SHORTED OUT THE RELAY SWITCH. AN UNKNOWN LOCAL DEALER WAS MADE AWARE OF THE FAILURE. THE VEHICLE WAS NOT REPAIRED. THE MANUFACTURER WAS NOT NOTIFIED. THE FAILURE MILEAGE WAS 78,000.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1476568 |
| ODI Number | 11102438 |
| Date Filed | June 18, 2018 |
| Failure Date | May 1, 2018 |
| VIN | 1G4HD57MX9U |
Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.
Read our methodology — how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.