Other electrical problem on the 2010 GMC Acadia
1 injury 1 of the 17 reports for this failure mention a crash, a fire, an injury or a death. Those are the owner's words on the complaint form, not a verified finding, and one report can mention more than one.
When other electrical problem gets reported
Owners of the 2010 GMC Acadia report other electrical problem at a median of 50,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 30,000 miles and a quarter after 125,000 miles, from 14 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 85,000 miles. It is the 6th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 20,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 150,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 131,098 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
When the reports scatter this far, the mileage is telling you about how these cars were driven more than about the part itself.
36% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19,665 miles | 28,660 miles | 51,946 miles | 123,500 miles | 150,763 miles |
Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.
What a percentile can and cannot tell you here
These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.
What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.
Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.
What happens, and what it costs
Of these reports, 1 an injury is mentioned. Owners write their own complaints and the agency does not verify them, so read this as what the reports say happened rather than as a confirmed count.
Putting it right typically runs $250–$2,000 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 17 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2020, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 2012 at 95,000 miles.
By volume the 2017 carries the most reports, with 147; the 2010 has 17. A mode that appears across most years of a model is usually a design choice rather than a bad batch.
If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
On 9/23/10 my wife exited our 2010 gmc acadia leaving the keys partially inserted into the ignition. Today 9/24/10 she heard a noise in the garage. When she opened the door she found the vehicle trying to start by itself. We do not have a remote starter installed. She removed the keys and took them back into the house. If the vehicle had started during the night while we were sleeping I may not have been able to send you this message. Later when I returned home I called the dealership where we purchased the acadia and reported the incident to their service specialist. They had not heard of this problem before. Has this problem been reported to NHTSA? *tr
While accelerating on the entrance ramp for central expressway, hwy 75, it became very sluggish, and all of a sudden had no pick up. I nearly got rear ended by a fast truck! Since april of 2011 I noticed that it had no pick up. The problem seemed to go away, when I learned to not accelerate too much to enter the highway, just gradually vs in a hurry. Then today, sept 2011, while driving at apprx 45 MPH on a busy road, the car seemed to pull back, and the traction light comes on, and beeps at me. It was a sunny, dry day. I pull over in a parking lot, turn off the engine, to get something out of my trunk, and it would not open - and, no, the override button was not on. Weird. I start the car, and the problem goes away, and I drive safely back to my destination. Why does the problem always exist when I am by myself, and watch, when I take the time off to bring it to the dealership, everything will be just fine. I pray that I make it to the dealership and they diagnose some sort of defect and fix it because it still is under warranty. I cannot bear the worse case scenario of anything happen to my family. *tr
My 2010 gmc acadia was sitting under my carport during an electrical storm. Lightening struck the vehicle, but did not strike any of the other 3 vehicles in the yard. This was the only vehicle with on-star. My family could have been seriously injured if we had been in the car. The entire elctrical system was knocked out. *tt
Also reported on the 2010 GMC Acadia
Other steering problem
Timing chain, belt or tensioner failure
Steering rack, gear or tie rod failure
Other engine problem
Other powertrain problem
Loss of power steering
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 17 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.
Questions this page answers
At what mileage does other electrical problem happen on the 2010 GMC Acadia?
Across 14 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 50,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 30,000 miles and a quarter after 125,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is other electrical problem on the 2010 GMC Acadia?
17 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.3 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.
What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars
Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed