2021 HYUNDAI SONATA HYBRID — Complaint #1876195
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about ENGINE AND ENGINE COOLING:ENGINE:OIL/LUBRICATION:SUMP/TANK:DRAIN PLUG filed February 25, 2023
NHTSA complaint #1876195 (ODI reference 11509128) concerns a 2021 HYUNDAI SONATA HYBRID and was filed on February 25, 2023. The owner reports the failure occurred on January 26, 2023. The report was geocoded to California based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as engine and engine cooling:engine:oil/lubrication:sump/tank:drain plug, 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 HYUNDAI SONATA HYBRID cohort independently describe similar engine and engine cooling:engine:oil/lubrication:sump/tank:drain plug 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 HYUNDAI SONATA HYBRID shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
Engine oil plug backed out while driving causing loss of all engine oil in the mountains. Drive time was one hour when oil lamp turned on as we reached our destination. Oil check stick had no oil on it and the whole undercarriage and rear of the car was covered in engine oil. Made an attempt to refill oil and plug fell all the way out and poured the new oil onto the ground. The oil plug is not visible or accessible due to a plastic cover on the underside of the car. The vehicle was towed to Elk Grove Hyundai dealership for service since they were the last hands on the car for regular maintenance. It was confirmed by the dealership the oil plug backed out on it's own. My family's safety was compromised as we were driving at night in steep mountains during high traffic time. There would be nowhere to go if the engine ceased and would cause an accident on HWY 50 in California. Also a full six quarts of oil was leaking on the back roads, highway, and residential roads, and eventually in a
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1876195 |
| ODI Number | 11509128 |
| Date Filed | February 25, 2023 |
| Failure Date | January 26, 2023 |
| VIN | KMHL24JJ1MA |
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.