PULSCAR ANALYSIS - P2101 (THROTTLE ACTUATOR CONTROL MOTOR) AND P2008 (INTAKE RUNNER CONTROL) COMPLAINTS 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/p2101-code ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Scope and dates. Prepared October 2026 from NHTSA's public flat files: owner complaints received from 1 January 2015 to 4 October 2026 (the latest received date in the files) and the index of manufacturer communications, plus the maker papers themselves from static.nhtsa.gov. The NHTSA complaint file is public: anyone can download it from NHTSA and check any number here against it. 1. Complaints counted (3,251) 1,462 complaints whose narrative names P2100 to P2109, P2008, P2009 or a sister code (P2111, P2112, P2118, P2119, P2176), or intake runner wording, or a throttle part together with reduced-power wording; a random sample of 1,000 of the 3,042 that matched only a throttle part together with another symptom (stall, lost power, will not accelerate, hesitation, surge, wrench light); and 789 more found by a further search of the whole file. That search did not list everything: by sample counts, at least 400 more narratives that name a throttle body and more than 1,000 that carry an "engine power reduced" message were not listed and not sorted. The other 2,042 of those 3,042 were not sorted and are listed in complaints-not-sorted.txt. A further 55 narratives about pedal and throttle position-sensor correlation codes (P2122, P2127, P2128, P2135, P2138) that never name the throttle motor or body were set aside for another guide. The exact search wording is in codebook.txt. found_by in the complaints file says which search found each complaint. Each complaint was sorted twice by the same written rules (codebook.txt), into one cause category and four yes/no questions (stall, limp, recall, returned); the rule applied to each complaint is in the rule_applied column. Result: 2,726 relevant, 525 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. 28 complaints spell out P2101 or P2008 (all of them relevant); the rest describe throttle events in the owners' words, which is why the set is built on wording as well as on codes (codes_named column). 2. Documents (p2101-documents.csv) NHTSA's index of manufacturer communications gave 1,079 entries from the first search and 50 more from the further search; 379 were chosen by what the index summary says. 371 of them have a file (8 have none and are listed as "no file": 10057210, 10057873, 10079741, 10080073, 10090505, 10091126, 10091139, 10097037). Recall filings for two campaigns were added: Nissan 26V-081 and Mitsubishi 17V-609 (25 files); no other recall or investigation papers are part of this set. Of the 396 files, 61 are exact copies of another file, leaving 335 distinct documents. Each file is marked in the list as read in full (251) or compared line by line with a near-identical file (145); 18 files that were scans were read from images of their pages. The list shows, for each file, whether its own text names P2101, P2008 or another throttle motor code (P2100, P2102 to P2109, P2111, P2112, P2118, P2119, P2176), whether it mentions a throttle body or actuator, and its relevance. Years, engines, build dates and coverage terms are as printed in the documents. Coverage status "as of October 2026" is our computation from printed terms. 3. Owner-reported amounts (229 figures in 210 complaints) A dollar figure is included when the owner states it as a price, charge, bill, quote or estimate for diagnosing, repairing or replacing a throttle body or its motor, a throttle position or pedal sensor sold or replaced as part of the throttle problem, a throttle cleaning or relearn, the throttle wiring, connector or fuse, the engine computer, a reflash, or the diagnostic fee, on that vehicle. Excluded: mileage written as "NNk"; vehicle price, value, payments, trade-ins, refund demands and settlement sums; repairs of other systems; totals that mix other major work; restatements; other owners' costs; rental-car and towing costs. Status comes from the owner's own words (paid, billed, quoted, not stated). 430 candidate figures were found and 201 were excluded, each with its reason in p2101-excluded-figures.csv. 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 sorted complaints, not all cars and not the whole complaint file. Not every matching narrative was sorted: 2,042 that matched only a throttle part together with another symptom were left out of the sample (complaints-not-sorted.txt), and the further search did not list everything: at least 400 narratives that name a throttle body and more than 1,000 with an "engine power reduced" message were found and not sorted. The sorted set therefore understates how many complaints of this kind exist. Only 28 complaints spell out P2101 or P2008. P2008 is a different part (a flap in the intake manifold); it is in the set only because the same searches bring it. The cause category is the least certain field; that is why the article reports the share of complaints where no cause was stated. 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, and 8 chosen index entries have no file to read.