Two numbers in the complaint record belong together.
12,007 complaints describe a car that surged or lurched — moved in a way the driver did not ask for. 7,186 complaints contain a version of the phrase "could not be duplicated", meaning the owner took it in and the workshop could not make it happen.
They are not the same complaints, but they overlap heavily, and together they describe the most frustrating situation in car ownership.
| What the complaint says | Complaints |
|---|---|
| The car surged or lurched | 12,007 |
| Fault could not be reproduced | 7,186 |
| Mentions the dealer at all | 437,549 |
Why intermittent faults defeat workshops
A diagnostic process is built on observation. Plug in, read the stored codes, reproduce the symptom, identify the component, replace it, verify.
An intermittent fault breaks the process at step three. It may require a specific temperature, a specific state of charge, a particular sequence of inputs, or twenty minutes of driving that a road test does not include. The car behaves perfectly for an hour and the file is closed.
Worse, many of these faults leave no stored code. A momentary electrical event can pass without setting anything the scanner will find an hour later.
None of that requires anyone to be dishonest. It is a genuine limitation, and it is why two complaints in five mention the dealer: the report is often about the visit rather than the fault.
What actually moves these cases
Three things recur in complaints that eventually got resolved.
The first is a pattern rather than an incident. "It surges" is not actionable. "It surges within two minutes of a cold start, only below ten degrees, only in first gear" is a test plan.
The second is other people's reports. If four hundred owners of the same model year describe the same behaviour, that is evidence the workshop does not have. It also frequently precedes a technical service bulletin, which is the manufacturer telling dealers how to fix something they have already seen.
The third is a recall, which converts the entire argument into a free repair. Intermittent electrical faults are a common recall subject precisely because they are hard to diagnose individually and obvious in aggregate.
Before you buy
This class of fault is the reason a test drive proves less than people think. A car that misbehaves once a fortnight will behave perfectly for the twenty minutes you have it.
What does work is checking whether the behaviour is already documented: read the complaint text for that exact model and year rather than counting complaints, because the descriptions tell you what the car does. And check the VIN for open recalls — if the fault is already acknowledged, you are buying a known problem with a free fix rather than an unknown one.
Frequently asked questions
Why can a workshop not find an intermittent fault?
Diagnosis depends on reproducing the symptom. An intermittent fault may need a specific temperature, state of charge or input sequence, and many leave no stored code at all — a momentary electrical event can pass without setting anything a scanner finds later.
What helps get an intermittent fault fixed?
A precise pattern rather than an incident — the conditions, temperature, gear and timing. Other owners' reports of the same behaviour on the same model year. And checking whether a recall or service bulletin already covers it, which turns the dispute into a free repair.
Does a test drive catch these faults?
Rarely. A fault that appears once a fortnight will not appear during a twenty-minute drive. Reading the complaint text for that model year and checking the VIN for open recalls is a better use of the time.
Denis Kataev is a serial solopreneur and the founder of ForCar. With 15+ years in software engineering and 10 years in SEO, he builds data-driven products end to end — backed by a sharp eye for design. At ForCar he mines proprietary vehicle datasets, turning raw numbers into buying advice you can actually trust.
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