PULSCAR ANALYSIS — HYUNDAI TUCSON IN NHTSA'S PUBLIC FILES PulsCar analysis of NHTSA public data, September 2026. License: CC BY 4.0. Attribution: "PulsCar analysis of NHTSA public data, September 2026." Published alongside https://www.pulscar.io/blog/hyundai-tucson-problems-by-mileage ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1. SOURCE FILES ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ NHTSA's own published flat files, downloaded from static.nhtsa.gov and loaded into a local SQLite database without modification. No third-party data. COMPLAINTS — 777,040 owner complaints received 1 January 2015 to 8 September 2026. https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/ffdd/cmpl/CMPL.txt RECALLS — one row per make/model/year per campaign; campaigns counted DISTINCT. MANUFACTURER — one row per make/model/year; documents counted DISTINCT by COMMUNICATIONS NHTSA document id. INVESTIGATIONS — ODI preliminary evaluations, engineering analyses, audit queries and defect petitions. Primary documents were downloaded from static.nhtsa.gov and read in full on 21 September 2026: Hyundai bulletins 22-EM-001H, 22-EM-002H-1, 22-EM-006H-2, 24-EM-002H, 21-BD-006H, the Service Campaign 953 dealer guide and the Service Campaign T6G/966 inspection bulletin. Complaints are self-reported and are not failure rates. There is no denominator: nobody publishes how many Tucsons of each year are on the road. Nothing here says the Tucson is more or less reliable than any other vehicle. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2. THE COMPLAINT SET ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ make = HYUNDAI and model = TUCSON (NHTSA's own fields, not text search): 5,874 complaints. Model year 2016 (1,616) and 2017 (1,084) together are 2,700, 46.0% of the file for this nameplate. Flag rates against the all-complaint baseline (777,040): fire 2.32% (baseline 1.82%) towed 5.94% (baseline 5.11%) crash 3.40% (baseline 4.37%) Generations are assigned by model year: 2005-2009 JM, 2010-2015 LM, 2016-2021 TL, 2022-2026 NX4. Engine options inside a generation are NOT a field in the complaint file, so any statement below about a specific engine is either taken from a manufacturer document or from what owners wrote, and says which. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 3. THEMES (tucson-complaint-themes-by-generation.csv) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Each theme is a Python regular expression with word boundaries, run with re.IGNORECASE on the narrative. A complaint can carry several themes, so the themes do not sum to the generation total. Mileage medians use only complaints with an odometer value above 0 and below 400,000; the count of usable mileages is published next to every median, because for some themes it is small. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 4. SAMPLE READING — REQUIRED BEFORE PUBLISHING ANY KEYWORD COUNT ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Engine theme, 2010-2021: 40 random matches (Python random.seed(2026)) read in full and classified in tucson-40-engine-complaints-read.csv. 38 of 40 describe an engine failure, knock, seizure or oil-consumption case; 2 were transmission or throttle complaints (5% false positives). Transmission theme, 2016-2021: 30 random matches read. About 24 describe the launch hesitation, delayed engagement or rollback from a stop that the 2016 dual-clutch recall and campaigns address; the rest were engine complaints that also used a transmission word. Read the theme as "about 8 in 10". Forward-collision theme, 2022-2026: 20 random matches read. 18 describe unexpected or premature automatic emergency braking; 2 described warning-light clusters or shutdowns that mention the system in passing. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 5. OWNER-REPORTED ENGINE AMOUNTS (tucson-owner-reported-engine-amounts.csv) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dollar figures between $1,000 and $25,000 within 90 characters of an engine word and a repair word (quote, estimate, replace, cost, charge), excluding windows that mention a loan, the purchase price, trade value or payments. 48 candidates; every one was read by hand and assigned a lane. 40 are published: engine replacement quote/cost 29 median $9,700, middle half $8,000-$12,000 used engine installed 5 $4,500-$6,000 owner share of a goodwill engine 4 $1,800-$3,200 oil-consumption cleaning 2 $1,000 and $1,600 Eight candidates were dropped on reading: an exhaust repair, ignition coils, a catalytic converter, a valve repair, a trade-in value, a general "spent at least" total, and two partial repairs that were not an engine replacement. These are what owners wrote, not invoices, and complaints over-represent the unlucky. They are published because no estimator shows the spread between a dealer long block and a used engine, and owners see both quotes. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 6. WHAT THE DOCUMENTS SAY (tucson-warranty-extensions.csv, tucson-recalls.csv) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 28 recall campaigns name the Tucson. 452 distinct manufacturer communications name it. Five ODI actions name it, including audit query AQ23-002 (opened 17 November 2023, no closing date in the file as of 8 September 2026) into 16 Hyundai and Kia recalls for Mando ABS modules, three of which are Tucson recalls (23V-651, 22V-056, 20V-543). The single most consequential document for most owners is 22-EM-006H-2 (November 2022): engine repair for connecting rod bearing wear extended to 15 years or 150,000 miles on certain 2016-2021 Tucson (TL) with the Nu 2.0L engine, and certain 2010-2015 Tucson with the listed engines. No document in NHTSA's file that we found lists the 2016-2021 Tucson with the 1.6-liter turbo in any engine warranty extension; 65 complaints on those model years name a 1.6 or turbo engine alongside an engine failure. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 7. LIMITS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ - A complaint mentioning a program is not proof the owner was eligible. - "Crash flag" means the owner reported a crash in the same complaint, not that the described defect caused it. - The complaint file ends 8 September 2026; recalls filed after that date are not counted. - Prices on the article page (other than the owner-reported amounts above) are carried from PulsCar's repair-cost guides for each job and are labelled there. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ CASE SENSITIVITY ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ NHTSA stores complaint narratives in ALL CAPS for records filed through roughly 2020 and in mixed case from 2021 on; a case-SENSITIVE search loses about 92% of the post-2020 complaints. Every text query behind this folder is case-insensitive: Python re.IGNORECASE for the themes, SQLite LIKE (which folds ASCII case) for the counts. The complaint set itself is selected by NHTSA's make and model fields, not by text, so it is complete regardless of case.