Car has turned off completely while driving twice now. Headlights, Dash, engine, everything.
- NHTSA ID
- 11775738
- Incident
- Nov 3, 2026
Owner-reported complaints naming the exterior lighting system, filed with NHTSA
Data refreshed
Reports naming headlights, tail lights, turn signals and other exterior lighting. Every record below is an owner-reported complaint about the 2024 Hyundai Sonata submitted to NHTSA — not a confirmed defect, not a recall and not a manufacturer bulletin. 8 reports on file name it.
Complaints are reports submitted by owners and drivers to NHTSA. They are not verified and do not establish that a defect exists.
Shown in the owner’s own words, exactly as filed
Car has turned off completely while driving twice now. Headlights, Dash, engine, everything.
Was driving with the wife on the highway and all of the lights and the dashboard turned off for about 3 seconds then came back on When the lights did come back on the seat belt light was illluminated then went out again We were safe but scary going 60 mph then all of a sudden total darkness
I was traveling along [XXX]. This is a dangerous road it has hills and curves. I was driving my 2024 Hyundai Sonata, where all of a sudden headlights went off and the infotainment center went off I couldn’t see anything on the road. Luckily I was right by a gas station (Circle K). This isn’t the first time this has happened with this car. Three different times, I was on the express way and almost crashed because the exterior lights and headlights shut off while driving.I couldn’t see a thing and I drifted off the road. I thought I was dead I literally saw my life flash before my eyes. I’m honestly scared to drive this car at night. INFORMATION REDACTED PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(B)(6)
While driving on the highway on 4/4/26 at 10:40 pm the dashboard and the headlights went out. The outage lasted about 5 seconds and then they came back on. I drove another 40 minutes and did not have another problem. My safety was put at risk because I could not see the road and others could not see me! There were no warnings prior to the problem. This is the second time in a year that this incident has happened. The first time was in September 2025.
While driving the dashboard headlights and all safety systems shut off for a brief period and then reset and if driving at night this leaves you completely in the dark till the system resets. All lights exterior and interior all the safety sensors, adaptive cruise control everything shuts off. Anything tied to the electrical system shuts off. The only thing that remains running is the engine.
The exterior lights such as head lights and brake lights aswell as all interior electronics shut off at random intervals while driving posing a serious danger early in the morning and at night.
The automatic high beams feature seems to work through the camera by the rearview mirror. But the issue is when this camera is blocked, all of the safety systems that use the camera will be disabled as they normally will be since the camera cannot see, but the automatic high beams function will still stay on, the indicator light for it will be green meaning that the system is operating normally. As a result of this, the automatic high beam system keeps the high beams on at ALL times because it thinks that it is dark enough because it doesn’t see any light through the camera. This could potentially increase the risk of a crash because the driver may not realize that the high beams are NOT turning off when approaching another vehicle or when a vehicle is coming the opposite direction, which can blind other drivers on the road. This needs a recall to resolve this problem.
When driving early in the morning while it was still dark outside, the car had what seemed to have been a sudden loss of electrical power. The audio for the radio cut off, then the screen for the radio and speedometer went blank, and the headlights also went out. This all lasted for a couple seconds when this happened and then everything came back on fine. I normally would think that this is a defective alternator which it probably is and would be covered under warranty, but after researching this problem I found out that it is a common issue with the 2024 Sonata. I feel that this warrants a safety recall which I seriously doubt will happen but it needs to. If it causes problems with headlights shutting off at night then this is a safety issue. Who knows what will happen if the headlights shut off on you at night and you couldn’t see where you were going because of it?
Higher-selling and older vehicles accumulate more reports. Counts are not failure rates and are not directly comparable between vehicles that sold in very different numbers.
Categories with enough reports to have a page of their own
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