NHTSA — Electrical System: Wiring Problems

2.2

hardly worth mentioning
Crashes / Fires:
0 / 0
Injuries / Deaths:
0 / 0
Average Mileage:
71,505 miles

About These NHTSA Complaints:

This data is from the NHTSA — the US gov't agency tasked with vehicle safety. Complaints are spread across multiple & redundant categories, & are not organized by problem.

So how do you find out what problems are occurring? For this NHTSA complaint data, the only way is to read through the comments below. Any duplicates or errors? It's not us.

2003 Pontiac Sunfire electrical problems

electrical problem

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2003 Pontiac Sunfire Owner Comments

problem #3

Mar 012006

Sunfire 4-cyl

  • Automatic transmission
  • 80,000 miles

A D V E R T I S E M E N T S

I purchased the car in October 2003 and the car was great. In March 2006 I started having problems where the car when attempted to start would take a few seconds extra and then start, then 6 months later I was driving down the street and the car just cut off in the middle of an intersection. The car restarted about 10 minutes later. Then in November this started happening more an more frequently. One night in December the car cut off and would not restart at all. I was able to pull of the road. I waited an hour and still the car would not start. I came back the next day and the car would not start. I got the car towed to a mechanic who said that he thought it was the fuel pump so I replaced that and the car worked for 2 days and then the same problem again. He then tested the car and saw there was no power going to the fuel pump. I had him do a temporary fix and run a line from the battery to the fuel pump so the car would still start. Then everything else slowly started to fail. The air bag light would come on intermittently and now stays on. One low beam headlight went out and then the other followed by my high beam totally. My front left turn signal went then the rear right followed by the front right. My horn no longer works. I don't know if my airbags would deploy if I was in an accident. The windshield wiper recently stopped working as well.

- Newark, NJ, USA

problem #2

Sep 122006

Sunfire 4-cyl

  • Automatic transmission
  • 94,515 miles
Turned the car off, went in the store, came out and the car was full off black smoke. The wire harness melted from the fuse panel back to the tail lights. Dealer said it started from a faulty diode near the fuse panel, but warranty would not cover it. Thank god the kids weren't waiting in the car.

- Dominion, Nova Scotia, 00, USA

problem #1

Jan 052007

Sunfire 4-cyl

  • Automatic transmission
  • 40,000 miles
The wiring harness on the vehicle has failed three times since 2003 causing failure of the low and high beams on the headlights as well as the turn signals. My understanding is that this is being caused by early corrosion. There is no warning of the impending failure. The lights immediately go out with no recourse until serviced. There is a great deal of discussion of this common problem, and the service department has admitted that this has been a common failure.

- Lisle, NY, USA

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