2012 Chevrolet Suburban problems
NHTSA has received 139 complaints about the 2012 Chevrolet Suburban, and 19% of them involve air bags. Next are body & structure (17%) and engine (9%).
At a glance
- Complaints
- 139 filed with NHTSA
- Most reported
- Air bags 19% of complaints
- Crashes and fires
- 3 and 5
- Injuries and deaths
- 2 and 0
- Typical mileage
- 68,000 miles 114 complaints with mileage
Source: NHTSA owner complaints
Where the complaints are
Share of this model year's complaints by the part of the car involved. One complaint can name more than one part, so the shares can add up to more than 100%.
When problems show up
View the numbers
| Mileage | Complaints |
|---|---|
| 0k to 20k miles | 12 |
| 20k to 40k miles | 14 |
| 40k to 60k miles | 14 |
| 60k to 80k miles | 25 |
| 80k to 100k miles | 15 |
| 100k to 120k miles | 16 |
| 120k to 140k miles | 8 |
| 140k to 160k miles | 6 |
| 160k to 180k miles | 2 |
| 180k to 200k miles | 0 |
| 200k+ miles | 2 |
What the data shows
Of the 114 complaints that include odometer readings, half describe a problem before roughly 68,000 miles. For air bags specifically, the median reported mileage is about 68,000 miles (19 complaints with mileage).
Safety-related details: 3 complaints mention a crash; 5 complaints mention a fire; 2 injuries reported.
Looking only at complaints filed within five years of the model year (so older and newer years are comparable), the 2012 ranks 23rd most-complained-about out of 35 model years of the Chevrolet Suburban with enough data (89 complaints in that window). It is also covered by 4 safety recall campaigns.
What owners wrote
A few complaints as filed, shortened and with personal details removed. The first ones are among the most serious reports for this model year; the rest are typical.
My auto gear shift disingaged from the transmission the car started moving as I was trying to get into the driver seat with driver door catching the tree limbs and opening the door and me holding onto the inside door handle brooke and I fell onto the ground when the car stopped by backing over the curb and hitting another tree. There is a bushing holding the cable to transmission lever and my auto transmission shop and local chevy dealer have both told me the faulty cable connector gets brittle and breaks.
Went to put my shoes on and I saw that my front end of my truck was on fire .it had been 15 hours since I had driven the truck . There were flames coming out of the front passagner side on the grill. And engulfed the front end of my truck.
Dashboard has cracked in multiple places and I'm concerned this may affect safety features such as airbags. Also have the same issue (but much worse) in my chevrolet avalanche. These dashboards are cheap and flimsy.
Cracking dashboard poses a safety threat to people inside the vehicle as well the driver in lack of deployment of the front airbags. Has happened on multiple vehicles of this year.