2021 GMC TERRAIN — Complaint #2131262
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about ENGINE AND ENGINE COOLING:ENGINE:ENGINE CONTROL MODULE (ECU/ECM) filed September 17, 2025
NHTSA complaint #2131262 (ODI reference 11687881) concerns a 2021 GMC TERRAIN and was filed on September 17, 2025. The owner reports the failure occurred on June 20, 2025. The vehicle had 78,843 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Kentucky based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as engine and engine cooling:engine:engine control module (ecu/ecm), 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 GMC TERRAIN cohort independently describe similar engine and engine cooling:engine:engine control module (ecu/ecm) 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 GMC TERRAIN shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
The contact owns a 2021 GMC Terrain. The contact stated that the transmission was previously replaced. The contact stated that upon starting the vehicle, the check engine warning light illuminated. The failure had occurred intermittently. Additionally, the contact stated that while driving approximately 15-20 MPH and depressing the accelerator pedal, the vehicle failed to respond for approximately 1 minute. The vehicle was taken to the Nissan dealer it was purchased several times. The dealer retrieved diagnostic trouble codes: P057C and P057E, and the brake pedal position sensor was replaced twice; however, the failure persisted. The Nissan dealer took the vehicle to a GM dealer, where the cause of the failure could not be determined. The vehicle was not repaired. The contact related the failure to TSB Number: PIT5994 (Diagnostic Tip for Reduced or Low Engine Power on Acceleration). The manufacturer was notified of the failure and referred the contact to the NHTSA Hotline for assistanc
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 2131262 |
| ODI Number | 11687881 |
| Date Filed | September 17, 2025 |
| Failure Date | June 20, 2025 |
| VIN | 3GKALPEV9ML |
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.