2003 CHRYSLER PT CRUISER — Complaint #629666
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about EXTERIOR LIGHTING:FOG LIGHTS:SWITCH filed July 7, 2007
NHTSA complaint #629666 (ODI reference 10195556) concerns a 2003 CHRYSLER PT CRUISER and was filed on July 7, 2007. The owner reports the failure occurred on July 7, 2007. The vehicle had 20,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Virginia based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as exterior lighting:fog lights:switch, 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 CHRYSLER PT CRUISER cohort independently describe similar exterior lighting:fog lights:switch 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 2003 CHRYSLER PT CRUISER shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
WE OWN A 2003 PT CRUISER. IT HAS MANIFESTED THREE SEPARATE PROBLEMS, ALL OF WHICH ARE SIMILAR TO COMPLAINTS I HAVE FOUND FROM OTHERS ON THE INTERNET: FIRST, THE "CHECK ENGINE" LIGHT COMES ON. THE DEALER SAID WE NEEDED TO CLICK THE GAS CAP. WE DID THAT, BUT THE LIGHT CAME BACK ON. SECOND, THE FOG LIGHT SWITCH FAILED SUCH SO THAT THE LIGHTS TURNED ON WITHOUT THE SWITCH BEING TOUCHED. WE DISCOVERED THE PROBLEM ONLY AFTER THE BATTERY HAD BEEN DRAINED, STRANDING MY WIFE AT WORK. I "FIXED" THIS PROBLEM BY PULLING THE FUSE ON THE FOG LIGHTS. I HAVE READ COMPLAINTS IN WHICH THIS FAULTY SWITCH HAS ACTUALLY STARTED FIRES. THIRD, WE HAVE THE INFAMOUS INTERMITTENT STARTING"PROBLEM. I HAVE REPLACED THE STARTER AND THE BATTERY. I CHECKED ALTERNATOR FUNCTION AND INTEGRITY OF ALL CABLE CONNECTIONS TO THE STARTER. THEN I READ OTHERS' COMPLAINTS AND HAVE FOUND THERE IS NO AVAILABLE SOLUTION. THE PROBLEM BECAME MORE AND MORE FREQUENT, AND NOW THE VEHICLE IS DEAD IN THE DRIVEWAY. OUR VEHICLE HAS ONL
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 629666 |
| ODI Number | 10195556 |
| Date Filed | July 7, 2007 |
| Failure Date | July 7, 2007 |
| VIN | 3C4FY58B13T |
Similar EXTERIOR LIGHTING:FOG LIGHTS:SWITCH Complaints for 2003 CHRYSLER PT CRUISER
THE FOG LIGHTS IN THE CHRYSLER PT CRUISER SUDDENLY CAME ON AND WILL NOT SHUT OFF. I BELIEVE THE MULTI FUNCTION SWITCHES WERE DEFECTIVE IN PT CRUISERS AND NEED TO BE RECALLED. THE BATTERY COULD HAVE
PT CRUISER 2003 FOG LIGHTS COME ON WITHOUT WARNING, BATTERY RUNS DEAD, DEFECTIVE PARTS ETC. $75.75 NEW BATTERY, LABOR $110.05 $76.14 NEW SWITCH, AND $129.98 A SECOND TIME LABOR FOR THE SAME PROBLEM.
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.