Consumer Safety Complaints
Search 2,245,377 safety complaints filed by vehicle owners with NHTSA, including 140,173 crashes, 56,794 fires, and 8,580 deaths.
What is a NHTSA consumer complaint?
A consumer complaint is a free-form report filed by a vehicle owner directly to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) describing a safety concern about their vehicle. NHTSA collects these reports through its Vehicle Owner Defect Report (VOQ) system and publishes them publicly. Each complaint includes the affected component, the date and circumstances of the incident, whether the failure caused a crash or fire, and any reported injuries or deaths. The owner's full narrative description is included verbatim, NHTSA does not edit or moderate the descriptions.
The database below contains over 2,245,377 individual complaints. NHTSA's investigators monitor it for clusters of similar reports, when enough owners describe the same failure mode on the same vehicle, NHTSA may open a Preliminary Evaluation that can lead to a recall. Many of the largest recalls in U.S. history, including the Takata airbag recall and the Hyundai/Kia engine fire recalls, started as patterns visible in this complaint database years before they became formal recalls.
How to interpret what you read
A few principles for reading consumer complaints usefully:
- One complaint is anecdote; a hundred similar complaints is data. NHTSA does not investigate the truthfulness of any individual report, that's the job of the Office of Defects Investigation, which looks at the full pattern. When evaluating a vehicle, look for whether multiple owners describe the same chain of events.
- Crash, fire, injury, and death flags are owner-set. They are not verified by NHTSA. They are still useful as a filter, because owners who tick those boxes are typically reporting more serious incidents than those who don't.
- Component categories are NHTSA-assigned, not owner-assigned. NHTSA standardizes the component field so that complaints can be aggregated. The owner narrative often goes into more detail than the component category captures.
- Complaint volume scales with sales volume. A best-selling model will accumulate more raw complaints than a niche model even at the same defect rate. To compare across vehicles, look at complaints per 100,000 units sold, not raw counts.
If you've experienced a defect
File a complaint. NHTSA's investigators rely on this database to detect emerging defects, and useful complaints, specific, concrete, with dates and mileage and clear descriptions of what happened, feed directly into the agency's pattern detection. The form takes about 10 minutes and is at nhtsa.gov/recalls under "Report a Safety Problem." Your complaint becomes part of the same public record that this page is built from. Owners filing detailed VOQs are how recalls get triggered.
Read more from our blog
Showing 17,413 complaints for ACURA
Incident date: Aug 27, 2022
Traveling on I-49 north at approximately 80 mph without any sign of a problem when suddenly the car began breaking, shifted into neutral, hazards flashing, and every light on my dash lit up (Emission system Failure, Braking Failure, and Transmission Failure). At first I thought it had something to do with the cruise control, so I tried turning that off, which did not help, so I pulled over to the... Read more
Incident date: Jan 18, 2022
What component or system failed or malfunctioned? Car automatically applied brakes on several occasions, despite no obstacles in front of the car. Incident 1: While driving through an 3-way intersection, the car slammed on the brakes automatically. There was a van in the opposite lane waiting to turn left. There was 2-3 feet of space so there was no risk of collision, but the car slammed on the br... Read more
Incident date: Jan 18, 2022
What component or system failed or malfunctioned? Car automatically applied brakes on several occasions, despite no obstacles in front of the car. Incident 1: While driving through an 3-way intersection, the car slammed on the brakes automatically. There was a van in the opposite lane waiting to turn left. There was 2-3 feet of space so there was no risk of collision, but the car slammed on the br... Read more
Incident date: Aug 2, 2022
Projector headlight failure. Replaced bulbs and cleaned lens and low beam is still almost non existent The reflector in the back of both projectors are disintegrated and will not reflect enough to pass inspection. New headlight assembly are in backorder which means this a reoccurring problem with the 2013, 2014, and 2015 model with the halogen bulbs.
Incident date: Jun 20, 2022
This complaint is in regards to the 2003 Acura model TL, which is made by Honda and seems to have a notorious car frame rust/rot problem due to designing the AC compressor drain line to dump water directly onto the cars front subframe/engine cradle causing it/them to be compromised to a serious extent that could lead to major injury and or death if not spotted and dealt with. All complaints clearl... Read more
Incident date: Jul 25, 2022
Purchased vehicle used. Halogen headlight assemblies are so dim at night that vision is impaired. This is a safety hazard for night driving. Known issue on this car model, that seems to be due to failure of reflective material over time. Will replace headlight assembly.
Incident date: Aug 25, 2022
The auto stop feature is enabled by default when the car is started. When stopped at a traffic light or in a traffic jam, the auto stop turns off the engine and is supposed to restart when the drivers foot is off the brake. The engine unexpectedly will not restart, and the car must be put in park, turned off, and restarted. This is dangerous in heavy traffic. The dealer replaced the battery as an... Read more
Incident date: Aug 24, 2022
(4/2021). While cruising on a 2 lane hwy the power went to zero. All I could do was coast to the shoulder. Restarted and was on the go. If I was passing another car and this happened when there was oncoming traffic I could had a head on collision. This occurred twice on the same 3 day vacation Another time (8/2022) While cruising at normal speed and acceleration in the passing lane on the inters... Read more
Incident date: Aug 22, 2022
Rear wheels on car will suddenly without warning turn causing the car to violently fishtail. I have had this happen 5 times in the last month. Acura dealer reproduced the malfunction 2 times. The last time this happened it almost put my family into oncoming traffic. We cannot currently drive the car for safety reasons and parts to fix the problem are not available. Seems the problem is within ... Read more
Incident date: Aug 15, 2022
The auto engine disable function causes the car to stall unexpectedly. The car engine stops, and the car changes from Drive into Neutral. The only way to re-engage the engine is to place into Park and restart the car. Sometimes, it requires more than one attempt. Fortunately, this has only happened while the car has been stopped, but it has happened at several busy intersections, holding up tr... Read more
Incident date: Aug 23, 2022
My car routinely sends a warning alert that there is an approaching object. It happens more frequently, when the temperature is hot, and it happens mostly when I am stopped at a traffic light. Occasionally, the alerts continue as I'm moving, which is really distracting, but even sitting at a traffic light is distracting and creating a safety issue. I listed yesterday's date, but this happens ne... Read more
Incident date: Aug 23, 2022
My car routinely sends a warning alert that there is an approaching object. It happens more frequently, when the temperature is hot, and it happens mostly when I am stopped at a traffic light. Occasionally, the alerts continue as I'm moving, which is really distracting, but even sitting at a traffic light is distracting and creating a safety issue. I listed yesterday's date, but this happens ne... Read more
Incident date: Aug 20, 2022
Stopped at red light and car would not restart after the auto idle turn off function had engaged. All lights on dash flashed and car kept going into neutral. Car would not restart for nearly 10 minutes and I was left stranded in an incredibly busy intersection with cars flying around me honking and yelling. I could have been killed as well as the man who stopped to help me. Incredibly angry to cal... Read more
Incident date: Feb 1, 2020
Acura RDX 2014 headlights - Yes available for inspection. The headlights are extremely dim and I have difficulty seeing the road due to the lack of light. They are so dim that passengers tell me I don't have my headlights on when I do. Upon researching this problem I found many Acura RDX 2014 with this problem. The dealership service department told me that the vehicle is known for headlight assem... Read more
Incident date: Aug 23, 2022
Transmission slips and shifts hard causing the car to lurch foreward. It also loses power when accelerating.
Incident date: Aug 23, 2022
Low beam headlights are extremely dim. Have replaced the bulbs, trying different brands and still very dim. This is a very dangerous car to drive at night. We drive with the high beams on in order to see the road. Started about 2 years ago with around 60K miles.
Incident date: Aug 1, 2021
For about a year or more, On cold start,(3-6+ hours of engine rest) rattle occurs for a brief period of time (usually 1-2 seconds) then ceases. TSB 09-010 is associated with various Honda models up to 2012, but does not include Acura. Car delivers no DTCs for this issue currently. Have not had the vehicle inspected by the dealer for this issue. Following the TSB, the symptom is the same. Replaceme... Read more
Incident date: Aug 23, 2022
Headlights are too dim. Dangerously dim. Apparently the entire assembly is defective and needs to be replaced.
Incident date: Aug 21, 2022
The passenger side air bag that is located under the dashboard has caused the dashboard to crack around the outline of the air bag unit. Cracks in the dashboard can result in pieces of the dashboard being projected into the eyes and face of passengers once the passenger airbag deploys. The cracks allow moisture into the airbag module which can create the risk of a faulty airbag deployment or faili... Read more
Incident date: Aug 21, 2022
When the idle stop comes on it shifts the car to neutral and I must shut off the car to get it to start again. This happens while on the highway and is unsafe.
Incident date: Aug 18, 2022
While driving on the highway the moon roof spontaneously exploded and shattered. The noise was loud and startling like a gunshot and poses a serious risk of crashing and injury if the shade is open at the time of explosion.
Incident date: Aug 18, 2022
While driving on the highway the moon roof spontaneously exploded and shattered. The noise was loud and startling like a gunshot and poses a serious risk of crashing and injury if the shade is open at the time of explosion.
Incident date: Jul 15, 2022
When you are driving the steering wheel is jerked out of your hand causing the vehicle to change lanes. The problem happens intermintently. Date the issue started was around 7/15/2022 and has continued since. Our vehicle has been taken to Acura of Baton Rouge but they are unable to get a fault code on the computer to know what to fix. Please note this is note the first issue with this so called ... Read more
Incident date: Jun 25, 2022
While traveling on a narrow road and a narrow bridge, the lane departure system caused the car to veer left into another car. The road had no dividing lane marker. The car was totaled and my wife injured
Crash
1 injured
Incident date: Aug 6, 2022
The contact owns a 2020 Acura RDX. The contact stated that while driving at approximately 70 MPH, the vehicle went into limp mode and experienced unintended deceleration to 5 MPH with the check engine warning light illuminated. The vehicle was towed to the dealer; however, the dealer was unable to duplicate the failure. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was made aware of the failure. ... Read more
Incident date: Aug 16, 2022
While driving, the vehicle shift into neutral unexpectedly, causing the transmission indicator to come on and OTC. Was going downhill when it happened but luckily I got off the road and went into a residential neighborhood to park. It was left on Neutral and could not shift to any gears. I put the emergency brake so the car wouldn't move down. I later found out after the car was towed that I was a... Read more
Incident date: Aug 12, 2022
On a few occasions, while at a stop light the auto idle engaged. When I lifted my foot from the brake pedal, which should restart the engine, the car Shifts automatically into neutral and cannot restart the engine. The dash shows a message saying that I must now shift to park. I have to then turn the car off, while in traffic, and then restart. This happens while in traffic, causing everyone b... Read more
Incident date: Aug 12, 2022
On a few occasions, while at a stop light the auto idle engaged. When I lifted my foot from the brake pedal, which should restart the engine, the car Shifts automatically into neutral and cannot restart the engine. The dash shows a message saying that I must now shift to park. I have to then turn the car off, while in traffic, and then restart. This happens while in traffic, causing everyone b... Read more
Incident date: Apr 1, 2022
water Leakage in the trunk, water gets filled up in the trunk side box. Driver side seat is making noises when moved forward or backwards and also there is an mis paint on the body near the brake light
Incident date: Apr 1, 2022
water Leakage in the trunk, water gets filled up in the trunk side box. Driver side seat is making noises when moved forward or backwards and also there is an mis paint on the body near the brake light
Incident date: Apr 1, 2022
water Leakage in the trunk, water gets filled up in the trunk side box. Driver side seat is making noises when moved forward or backwards and also there is an mis paint on the body near the brake light
Incident date: Aug 16, 2022
On two occasions now my vehicle was parked at the train station and I have returned to the back window being cracked. The first time (11/21) when I shut the rear passenger door I heard the glass crack. There was a small hole near the bottom center which quickly expanded as doors were closed. The second time (8/22) I walked up to my vehicle and there was a large hole in the rear window which loo... Read more
Incident date: Aug 16, 2022
On two occasions now my vehicle was parked at the train station and I have returned to the back window being cracked. The first time (11/21) when I shut the rear passenger door I heard the glass crack. There was a small hole near the bottom center which quickly expanded as doors were closed. The second time (8/22) I walked up to my vehicle and there was a large hole in the rear window which loo... Read more
Incident date: Aug 16, 2022
Low beams very dim due to headlight housing defect
Incident date: Aug 15, 2022
After coming to a stop at a red light, the vehicle engine turned off as designed with auto start stop. When the light turned green, the vehicle temporarily restarted when I released the brake pedal, but immediately stalled and would not restart. This is a major safety concern as I was on a four lane road with traffic all around and I was unable to move. I had place the vehicle into park, turn... Read more
Incident date: May 1, 2022
Good afternoon, my Acura MDX 2016 roof paint peeling off. It is known problem. also I found gov. document for warranty extension. but Acura refuse to fix my MDX paint job. because of my car is not in the warranty extension list. please check attached my photo file. this shows perfectly matched claim requirement. 2016 Acura MDX white pearl color (NH603P) what should I do please help me.
Incident date: Aug 13, 2022
Engine shut down at stop (gas saving feature) when I try to go again give it gas car stalls.
Incident date: Aug 13, 2022
The sunroof/moonroof was closed and it exploded/shattered going down a major interstate highway doing 65mph. It sounded like a bomb or someone shot a gun at me. Glass is everywhere and its not cleaned up. Nothing was thrown at vehicle. There are no recalls on this vehicle. No warning lights or messages when it happened. I was very lucky I didn't receive injuries from the falling glass/getting cut.... Read more
Incident date: Aug 11, 2022
I have a defective dashboard in my Acura TL. The dashboard is cracking. One of the crack pieces popped out and flew into my eye while driving. I almost rear-ended someone. I would hate for this to happen to anyone else. There needs to be a recall on all dashboards. 2. I can not see through my review mirror. The top half is light grey and the lower half is blacked out/tinted. A rearview mirror is ... Read more
Crash
5 injured
Incident date: Aug 11, 2022
I have a defective dashboard in my Acura TL. The dashboard is cracking. One of the crack pieces popped out and flew into my eye while driving. I almost rear-ended someone. I would hate for this to happen to anyone else. There needs to be a recall on all dashboards. 2. I can not see through my review mirror. The top half is light grey and the lower half is blacked out/tinted. A rearview mirror is ... Read more
Crash
5 injured
Incident date: Aug 5, 2022
On a multi-day road trip, the car had a temporary complete loss of power on two separate days. Both times this happened after several hours of driving at highway speeds on I-15 in California, outside temperatures were in the 90s. After a slight deceleration and then applying the accelerator again, there was a 'clunk' like sound possibly from the transmission, and then a complete loss of power. The... Read more
Incident date: Aug 5, 2022
On a multi-day road trip, the car had a temporary complete loss of power on two separate days. Both times this happened after several hours of driving at highway speeds on I-15 in California, outside temperatures were in the 90s. After a slight deceleration and then applying the accelerator again, there was a 'clunk' like sound possibly from the transmission, and then a complete loss of power. The... Read more
Incident date: Aug 5, 2022
On a multi-day road trip, the car had a temporary complete loss of power on two separate days. Both times this happened after several hours of driving at highway speeds on I-15 in California, outside temperatures were in the 90s. After a slight deceleration and then applying the accelerator again, there was a 'clunk' like sound possibly from the transmission, and then a complete loss of power. The... Read more
Incident date: Aug 1, 2022
The contact owns a 2020 Acura MDX. The contact stated that while the vehicle was idling, the engine suddenly shut off when the driver attempted to accelerate forward. During the failure, the message “shift into park to restart” had displayed. After shifting to the park position the engine was restarted and the vehicle operated as normal. The failure had occurred on at least four separate occas... Read more
Incident date: Aug 5, 2022
Father in laws vehical, low beam headlights so dim you can not see the road in front of you. very unsafe condition. bulbs changed, it appears reflective material inside the housing is missing or faded away, replacement lamp assembly very expensive. I see many other reports of this problem on here & on the Web. Other Acuras have had recalls issued for similar reasons, why not this one?
Incident date: Aug 7, 2022
My passenger and I were stopped in a gas line, and had just moved my car from park to drive. I tapped on my gas pedal to inch the car forward as the car in front of me was now about 3 car lengths ahead of me. As I lifted my foot off the pedal and the car began to roll, it picked up speed and started to accelerate, despite my foot being off the gas pedal. Upon attempting to brake multiple times, t... Read more
Incident date: Aug 7, 2022
My passenger and I were stopped in a gas line, and had just moved my car from park to drive. I tapped on my gas pedal to inch the car forward as the car in front of me was now about 3 car lengths ahead of me. As I lifted my foot off the pedal and the car began to roll, it picked up speed and started to accelerate, despite my foot being off the gas pedal. Upon attempting to brake multiple times, t... Read more
Incident date: Aug 7, 2022
My passenger and I were stopped in a gas line, and had just moved my car from park to drive. I tapped on my gas pedal to inch the car forward as the car in front of me was now about 3 car lengths ahead of me. As I lifted my foot off the pedal and the car began to roll, it picked up speed and started to accelerate, despite my foot being off the gas pedal. Upon attempting to brake multiple times, t... Read more
Incident date: Feb 9, 2022
The contact owns a 2002 Acura MDX. The contact received notification of NHTSA Campaign Number: 20V027000 (Air Bags) however, the part to do the recall repair was not yet available. The local dealer was contacted several times and informed the contact that they did not have the equipment needed for the recall repair. The contact stated that the manufacturer had exceeded a reasonable amount of time ... Read more
Incident date: Jul 2, 2022
EPS, electronic power steering module failure. "Check power steering system"