PULSCAR ANALYSIS - P0562 (SYSTEM VOLTAGE LOW) AND LOW-VOLTAGE / CHARGING-SYSTEM FAULTS IN NHTSA'S PUBLIC FILES PulsCar analysis of NHTSA public data, October 2026. License: CC BY 4.0 Attribution: "PulsCar analysis of NHTSA public data, October 2026." Published alongside https://www.pulscar.io/blog/p0562-code ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Prepared October 2026. Source data: NHTSA public flat files (complaints received 1 January 2015 to 4 October 2026 - the latest received date in the files; manufacturer communications; recalls since 2010) and documents downloaded one at a time from static.nhtsa.gov. 1. Complaints (3,633) First search (2,442): every complaint whose narrative names a code from P0560 to P0564 by any spelling we searched (a letter O for zero, a space, hyphen or period after the P, the suffix 00, or a bare number after "code", "DTC", "error", "CEL" or "fault"), or uses low-voltage or charging wording (system voltage, low voltage, battery voltage, under-voltage, charging system, battery charging, battery saver, voltage regulator, not charging, stopped charging) together with a word about a light, message, code, stall, loss of power, dead battery, test or replacement. Complaints that name an alternator failure but none of the search's voltage or charging phrases were not sorted (some of them still mention a battery light, a code or a voltage) (1,157 of them are listed in complaints-not-sorted.txt). Second search (1,191): an independent search of the whole file for what the first one missed, run after the first batch was sorted. A reader judged about 2,000 candidates against the relevance rule and kept 1,191 of them; the search was set to stop at 1,200 kept and stopped just under that cap, at 1,191; more complaints in the same wording exist in the file. The second batch added: battery-light, battery-warning and check-battery wording; volt gauge and voltmeter readings; power-saving-mode and check-power-supply messages; the code P0562 with extra digits (P056216) and neighbouring voltage codes; hybrid and electric cars whose 12-volt battery was not being charged; charging-system wording the first search had no context word for; and alternator narratives that also describe a warning, a message, a code or a voltage reading. found_by in the complaints file says which search found each complaint. Sorting: the sorting rules (codebook.txt) were written, dated and fingerprinted before any complaint was sorted; an addendum for the second batch was fingerprinted before that batch was sorted. Every complaint was sorted twice, independently, by the same written rules, each time from the rules alone, without sight of the other sorting (columns sorting1 and sorting2). One category (A alternator or generator; B the 12-volt battery; W wiring, cable, ground or connector; M module, sensor or software; P parasitic drain; O another named cause; K checked and cleared; U no cause or repair stated; N not a low-voltage or charging fault on this vehicle) and four flags (stall, nostart, recall, returned). Where the complaint gave the sorting only an excerpt around the matching words, the complete text was used when the excerpt did not decide the question. Agreement over all 3,633: category 3,355 (92.3%); stall 3,510 (96.6%); nostart 3,507 (96.5%); recall 3,547 (97.6%); returned 3,420 (94.1%). Settling: every disagreement (696 complaints) was settled by one of the written rules listed in codebook.txt; the rule applied is in the rule_applied column. A consistency check then changed 123 rows under the same rules, 89 of them rows on which both sortings had agreed (resolution says "changed in consistency pass"): the check read in full every complaint whose wording pointed to a failed start or a stall but where both sortings had said no. Result: 2971 relevant, 662 not relevant. Counts are counts of complaints, not cars. A complaint is evidence that an owner wrote to NHTSA; nothing here is a failure rate. 2. Documents NHTSA's index of manufacturer communications lists 1,543 entries whose summary matches code, charging-system or low-voltage wording. Not all of them could be read. Read: the 68 index entries whose summary names P0560 to P0564, and the 95 whose summary opens with charging-system, battery-saver, low-voltage, system-voltage, regulator or alternator wording (best match first, one per bulletin number); then 60 more found by the independent search. 1 of the 223 has no PDF on NHTSA, leaving 222 files, 201 distinct texts (the rest are exact copies). Index entries not read are not evidence of anything. Reading: the files fall into groups of near-identical documents (revisions, copies, look-alikes). One representative of each group, 151 in all, was read in full (for a few papers on a neighbouring subject the notes kept on the reading are brief); the other files were compared with their representative line by line. 15 papers whose PDF had no readable text were read from images of their pages. Every verbatim quotation was checked against the text of the named document. The document list says, for each file, what was done (column read), which of the codes P0560 to P0564 its own text names, whether it uses charging-system or low-voltage wording, and its relevance (DIRECT: about a low-voltage or charging fault; LISTED: a target code is one of many in a list; RELATED: a neighbouring fault or the same warning from another cause; NOT RELEVANT). Recalls: the Part 573 report and related papers of 10 recall campaigns that appear in the complaints and concern the charging system, the 12-volt battery, its sensor or cable, or an alternator were read (they were chosen for that reason, not as the ten most-cited): 10V555, 13V173, 14V634, 17V418, 17V435, 20V705, 24V200, 24V267, 25V019, 26V248. Years and models are as printed in the Part 573, never from NHTSA's index. Vehicle years, engines, build dates and coverage terms are as printed in the documents. Coverage status "as of September 2026" is the authors' computation from printed terms. duplicate_of marks exact copies (same text as another file); the second files of a document are listed as the document number followed by -2. 3. Owner-reported amounts (157 figures in 134 complaints) One written inclusion rule (fixed before the figures were decided): a dollar figure is included when the owner states it as a price, charge, bill or quote for diagnosing, repairing or replacing a part of the charging or starting-battery system for this fault on that vehicle (battery, alternator with its regulator, cables, terminals or grounds, battery sensor, a power-management module, software, a diagnostic fee, or a tow caused by the event). Excluded: mileage written as "NNk"; vehicle value, payments, trade-ins or refund requests; repairs of other systems; totals that mix this fault with other work unless the owner attributes the figure to the charging part; restatements; hypothetical figures and other owners' costs. Status comes from the owner's own words (paid, billed, quoted, offered, not stated). 346 candidate figures were found in the relevant complaints and 189 were excluded, each with its reason. Figures are what owners wrote, not audited invoices. 4. Limits The complaint file holds the cases where an owner wrote to NHTSA, in the owner's words, with no verification; owners whose trouble ended are mostly not in it. The shares reported describe the complaints, not all cars. Only 18 narratives name P0562 itself (16 as plain P0562, one as "P 0562", one as "code 0562"); the rest describe the same low-voltage or charging event in words, which is why the set is built on wording as well as on codes. The second search was capped, so complaints in the same wording remain unsorted, and complaints that name only an alternator failure, without the search's voltage or charging phrases, were left out by rule. The document set holds what NHTSA's index lists and what could be read; a maker paper that is not in the index is not in it.