1999 MITSUBISHI GALANT — Complaint #600011
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about VISIBILITY:REAR WINDOW WIPER/WASHER:SWITCH/WIRING filed October 18, 2006
NHTSA complaint #600011 (ODI reference 10171170) concerns a 1999 MITSUBISHI GALANT and was filed on October 18, 2006. The owner reports the failure occurred on October 18, 2006. The vehicle had 126,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to South Carolina based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as visibility:rear window wiper/washer:switch/wiring, 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 MITSUBISHI GALANT cohort independently describe similar visibility:rear window wiper/washer:switch/wiring 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 1999 MITSUBISHI GALANT shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
DT*: THE CONTACT STATED THE VEHICLE DID NOT START IMMEDIATELY UPON TURNING THE IGNITION. THE WARNING LIGHTS ILLUMINATED BRIEFLY. PREVIOUSLY, THE VEHICLE HAD BEEN TAKEN TO 3 DIFFERENT PRIVATE REPAIR SHOPS, WHO ALL DETERMINED THE PROBLEM WAS WITH THE STARTER. EACH TIME, THE STARTER WAS REPLACED, BUT THE PROBLEM RECURRED. ALSO, A PIECE OF THE WINDSHIELD WIPER/WASHER SWITCH DETACHED FROM THE SWITCH ITSELF, CAUSING THE WASHER TO NOT FUNCTION. THE WASHER SWITCH WAS NOT SEEN BY A DEALER, HOWEVER, THE MANUFACTURER WAS CONTACTED. THERE WAS A NHTSA RECALL # 99V305001, WHICH PERTAINS TO THE WINDSHIELD WIPER/WASHER SWITCH. THE VEHICLE WAS NOT INCLUDED IN THE RECALL DUE TO THE VIN. UPDATED 12/5/2006 - *NM
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 600011 |
| ODI Number | 10171170 |
| Date Filed | October 18, 2006 |
| Failure Date | October 18, 2006 |
| VIN | 4A3AA46L4XE |
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.