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2006 CHEVROLET EQUINOX — Complaint #949335

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NHTSA Complaint about VISIBILITY:DEFROSTER/DEFOGGER/HVAC SYSTEM:WINDSHIELD:ELECTRICAL HEATING ELEMENT filed November 14, 2012

NHTSA complaint #949335 (ODI reference 10484614) concerns a 2006 CHEVROLET EQUINOX and was filed on November 14, 2012. The owner reports the failure occurred on October 18, 2012. The vehicle had 125,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Maine based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as visibility:defroster/defogger/hvac system:windshield:electrical heating element, 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. No VIN was supplied by the filer, so this complaint contributes to model-year trend data but cannot be tied to a specific vehicle.

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 CHEVROLET EQUINOX cohort independently describe similar visibility:defroster/defogger/hvac system:windshield:electrical heating element 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 2006 CHEVROLET EQUINOX shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.

Vehicle
2006 CHEVROLET EQUINOX
Component
VISIBILITY:DEFROSTER/DEFOGGER/HVAC SYSTEM:WINDSHIELD:ELECTRICAL HEATING ELEMENT
State
Maine
Mileage
125,000 mi

Complaint Description

I HAVE A 2006 CHEVY EQUINOX THAT THE HEATER DOES NOT WORK. THE BLOWER FAN AND ALL THE SWITCHES ARE FINE. WHEN I TURN THE TEMP KNOB TO HOT AIR, ONLY GET COLD COME OUT. DOES NOT MATTER WHAT SETTING THE MODE DOOR IS IN. VEHICLE NO LONGER BLOWS HOT AIR WHEN HEAT IS ON THEREFORE THE DEFROSTER WILL NOT BLOW HOT AIR AS WELL. THIS IS A SAFETY HAZARD! IF WINDOWS ARE FOGGED OR ICED DURING INCLEMENT WEATHER YOU CAN NOT SEE AND COULD CAUSE AN ACCIDENT RESULTING IN FATALITIES. I FOUND OVER 500 COMPLAINTS ABOUT THE SAME PROBLEM ON THE INTERNET. PROBLEM SEEMS TO BE WITH A PLASTIC TEMPERATURE DOOR VALVE (TEMPERATURE BLEND DOOR) THAT IS BROKEN.THE COST IS OVER 1,000 AND I AM BEING TOLD GM WILL NOT FIX THE PROBLEM. I HAVE TWO SMALL CHILDREN AND WE ARE FREEZING IN MY CAR THAT I BOUGHT TO BE A "FAMILY" VEHICLE. THIS IS JUST ONE MORE PROBLEM TO THE LIST OF THINGS I HAVE ALREADY HAD FIXED IN THIS CAR SINCE I BOUGHT IT. *TR

Complaint Details

NHTSA Complaint ID 949335
ODI Number 10484614
Date Filed November 14, 2012
Failure Date October 18, 2012

Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.