2020 HYUNDAI SANTA FE — Complaint #2101274
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about VISIBILITY:DEFROSTER/DEFOGGER/HVAC SYSTEM:CONDENSOR/EVAPORATOR filed June 17, 2025
NHTSA complaint #2101274 (ODI reference 11667400) concerns a 2020 HYUNDAI SANTA FE and was filed on June 17, 2025. The owner reports the failure occurred on June 15, 2024. The vehicle had 29,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Florida based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as visibility:defroster/defogger/hvac system:condensor/evaporator, 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 SANTA FE cohort independently describe similar visibility:defroster/defogger/hvac system:condensor/evaporator 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 2020 HYUNDAI SANTA FE shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
The contact owns a 2020 Hyundai Santa Fe. The contact stated that occasionally while driving at various speeds in hot climate, the air conditioning failed to blow cold air. No warning light was illuminated. The vehicle was taken to a local dealer however, the failure could not be replicated. The vehicle was taken to a local independent mechanic for a second opinion, where it was diagnosed with an evaporator temperature sensor failure. The contact was informed that the evaporator temperature sensor needed to be replaced. The vehicle was not repaired. Upon further investigation, the contact related the failure to Technical Service Bulletin: 21-HA-001H; however, the VIN was not included. The manufacturer was made aware of the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 29,000.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 2101274 |
| ODI Number | 11667400 |
| Date Filed | June 17, 2025 |
| Failure Date | June 15, 2024 |
| VIN | 5NMS23AD0LH |
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.