2002 BUICK CENTURY — Complaint #629428
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about WHEELS:HUBCAP/COVER filed July 5, 2007
NHTSA complaint #629428 (ODI reference 10195367) concerns a 2002 BUICK CENTURY and was filed on July 5, 2007. The owner reports the failure occurred on April 30, 2007. The vehicle had 34,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Minnesota based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as wheels:hubcap/cover, 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 CENTURY cohort independently describe similar wheels:hubcap/cover 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 2002 BUICK CENTURY shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
WHEN I HAD AN OIL CHANGE AT ABOUT 32,000 MILES THE MECHANIC INDICATED THE OIL WAS A QUART LOW. I HAD THE COOLING SYSTEM FLUSHED AT ABOUT 50,000 MILES AND THE MECHANIC NOTED OIL IN THE ANTIFREEZE. AT 55,000 MILES THE CAR NOW NEEDS A NEW INTAKE MANIFOLD GASKET AT A COST OF $800 TO $900. GM FACES A CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT IN CANADA FOR THIS SAME PROBLEM AND MANY U.S. BLOGS INDICATE THIS IS A COMMON PROBLEM. SERVICE STATIONS ARE REPORTING THAT THIS FAILURE IS COMMON AND DUE TO A DESIGN DEFECT. THE WARRANTY EXPIRED AT 36,000 MILES. BECAUSE OF THIS, BUICK SAYS IT HAS NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR THIS PROBLEM. IN ADDITION TO THE GASKET PROBLEM, I HAD TO REPLACE THE WIPE BLADE MECHANISM AND LEAKING WHEEL BEARINGS. THESE, TOO, WERE PREMATURE PROBLEMS AND NOT DUE TO ANY ABUSE OR NEGLECT OF CAR MAINTENANCE. GM WILL NOT RECOGNIZE A HISTORY OF PROBLEMS DUE TO THE FACT I WENT TO A LOCAL PRECISION TUNE FOR MAINTENANCE. THE DEALERSHIP I PURCHASED THE CAR FROM MOVED ABOUT 45 MINUTES AWAY FROM MY HOM
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 629428 |
| ODI Number | 10195367 |
| Date Filed | July 5, 2007 |
| Failure Date | April 30, 2007 |
| VIN | 2G4WY55J121 |
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.