2011 HYUNDAI SONATA — Complaint #1919831
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about ELECTRICAL SYSTEM:IGNITION:ANTI-THEFT:IMMOBILIZER/PROXIMITY:SENSOR filed August 17, 2023
NHTSA complaint #1919831 (ODI reference 11539096) concerns a 2011 HYUNDAI SONATA and was filed on August 17, 2023. The owner reports the failure occurred on August 17, 2023. The vehicle had 112,000 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 electrical system:ignition:anti-theft:immobilizer/proximity:sensor, 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 cohort independently describe similar electrical system:ignition:anti-theft:immobilizer/proximity:sensor 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 2011 HYUNDAI SONATA shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
The contact owns a 2011 Hyundai Sonata. The contact stated that after the manufacturer performed Service Campaign 993 (Inspect & Anti-Theft Software Upgrade) the vehicle failed to shutoff as needed. Additionally, the alarm was activated while starting the vehicle. The contact disconnected the battery to shutoff the vehicle. The vehicle was taken to the dealer, where pliers were used to remove the key fob and a second key was used to restart the vehicle; however, the failure recurred. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was made aware of the failure but provided no assistance. The failure mileage was approximately 112,000.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1919831 |
| ODI Number | 11539096 |
| Date Filed | August 17, 2023 |
| Failure Date | August 17, 2023 |
| VIN | 5NPEB4AC7BH |
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.