2019 SUBARU ASCENT — Complaint #1748068
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about PARKING BRAKE:ELECTRICAL:SWITCH filed May 19, 2021
NHTSA complaint #1748068 (ODI reference 11417718) concerns a 2019 SUBARU ASCENT and was filed on May 19, 2021. The owner reports the failure occurred on May 16, 2021. The report was geocoded to New York based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as parking brake:electrical:switch, 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 SUBARU ASCENT cohort independently describe similar parking brake:electrical:switch 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 2019 SUBARU ASCENT shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
The parking/emergency brake lever was accidently activated while traveling at highway speed of 70mph. The lever is in a BAD location and close to where cell phone is charged, cup holders are and transmission shift lever. Cell phone charge cable caught on lever and LOCKED up rear brakes at 70MPH. Almost resulted in loss of life and crash!
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1748068 |
| ODI Number | 11417718 |
| Date Filed | May 19, 2021 |
| Failure Date | May 16, 2021 |
| VIN | 4S4WMACD5K3 |
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.