2012 BUICK LACROSSE — Complaint #1880965
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about POWER TRAIN:DRIVELINE:CHAIN/BELT filed March 17, 2023
NHTSA complaint #1880965 (ODI reference 11512439) concerns a 2012 BUICK LACROSSE and was filed on March 17, 2023. The owner reports the failure occurred on March 15, 2023. The vehicle had 141,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Georgia based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as power train:driveline:chain/belt, 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 LACROSSE cohort independently describe similar power train:driveline:chain/belt 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 2012 BUICK LACROSSE shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
The contact owns a 2012 Buick LaCrosse. The contact stated that while driving at an undisclosed speed, the vehicle lost motive power. No warning lights were illuminated. The contact restarted the vehicle; however, the failure recurred. The vehicle was towed to the dealer, where it was diagnosed that the serpentine belt had detached and needed to be replaced. Additionally, the dealer determined that there was a gasket leak. The vehicle was not repaired. The contact stated that the serpentine belt had previously been replaced twice; however, the failure recurred. The manufacturer was not made aware of the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 141,000.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1880965 |
| ODI Number | 11512439 |
| Date Filed | March 17, 2023 |
| Failure Date | March 15, 2023 |
| VIN | 1G4GC5GR5CF |
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.