2003 DODGE NEON — Complaint #655455
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about EXTERIOR LIGHTING:FOG LIGHTS:SWITCH filed January 29, 2008
NHTSA complaint #655455 (ODI reference 10216359) concerns a 2003 DODGE NEON and was filed on January 29, 2008. The owner reports the failure occurred on January 13, 2008. The vehicle had 80,000 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 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 DODGE NEON 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 DODGE NEON shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
I WAS USING MY HEADLIGHTS AND FOG LIGHTS AND SMELLED BURNING PLASTIC AND SAW SMOKE COMING FROM MY STEERING COLUMN. I SHUT OFF MY LIGHTS AND A FEW MINUTES LATER THE SMOKE STOPPED. THAT EVENING MY HEADLIGHTS LOST FUNCTION AND ONLY MY HIGH BEAMS WOULD WORK. MY HIGH BEAMS NOW FLICKER AND I'M FEARING THOSE WILL LOSE FUNCTION AS WELL. WHEN REMOVING THE PANEL BENEATH MY STEERING COLUMN I LOOKED TO SEE WHAT HAPPENED AND ALL I COULD SEE IS THAT ONE OF WIRING HARNESSES IS MELTED. I'VE LOOKED AT OTHER INVESTIGATIONS THAT RELATE INCLUDING EA06019 AND PE06028. *CN
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 655455 |
| ODI Number | 10216359 |
| Date Filed | January 29, 2008 |
| Failure Date | January 13, 2008 |
| VIN | 1B3ES56C43D |
Similar EXTERIOR LIGHTING:FOG LIGHTS:SWITCH Complaints for 2003 DODGE NEON
2003 DODGE NEON LIGHTS WENT OUT AND STARTED SEEING SMOKE COMING OUT OF THE DASH ON THE LEFT HAND SIDE WHERE THE MULTI FUNCTION SWITCH IS. *NM
MY MULTI-FUNCTION SWITCH ON MY 2003 DODGE NEON SHORT CIRCUITED AND MELTED THE PLUG THAT IT CONNECTS TO I HAVE CONTACTED DODGE AND SEARCHED MULTIPLE JUNK YARDS FOR THE PLUG AND HAVE BEEN UNABLE TO FI
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.