2021 BUICK ENCORE GX — Complaint #1842203
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about ENGINE AND ENGINE COOLING:ENGINE:OTHER FUEL TYPES:TURBO/SUPERCHARGER:INTERCOOLER filed September 20, 2022
NHTSA complaint #1842203 (ODI reference 11485494) concerns a 2021 BUICK ENCORE GX and was filed on September 20, 2022. The owner reports the failure occurred on June 18, 2022. The vehicle had 43,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Maryland based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as engine and engine cooling:engine:other fuel types:turbo/supercharger:intercooler, 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 ENCORE GX cohort independently describe similar engine and engine cooling:engine:other fuel types:turbo/supercharger:intercooler 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 2021 BUICK ENCORE GX shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
The contact owns a 2021 Buick Encore GX. The contact stated while driving approximately 60 MPH, the check engine warning light illuminated with the âEngine Power Reduced message displayed. The contact stated that the vehicle lost motive power and the vehicle failed to exceed 25 MPH with the accelerator pedal depressed. The contact stated that the loss of power had become a recurring failure and occurred at various speeds. The contact had taken the vehicle to a local dealer, who diagnosed that the intercooler on the turbo needed to be replaced. The vehicle was repaired; however, the failure recurred. The vehicle was returned to the dealer multiple times for the engine failure. The manufacturer had not been informed of the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 43,000.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1842203 |
| ODI Number | 11485494 |
| Date Filed | September 20, 2022 |
| Failure Date | June 18, 2022 |
| VIN | KL4MMBS23MB |
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.