2021 Hyundai Palisade1st gen (2020–2025), pre-facelift

Updated 2026-08-28NHTSA counts read on this date — 423 complaints. They rise over time.

61 Reports Say the 2021 Hyundai Palisade’s Seat Belts Unlatch

Sixty-one complaints about the 2021 Hyundai Palisade describe a seat belt that had been buckled coming open on its own while the car was moving. Most of them describe the second row, which is where the car seats go.

Hyundai did recall this car’s buckles, in September 2025. The defect it names is a buckle that will not latch, which is not the thing most of these filings describe.

The 2021 is otherwise the year Hyundai closed the clearest gap in the 2020 lineup. LED headlights, optional on the SEL and standard only on the Limited a year earlier, went on every trim, and IIHS moved the Palisade from Top Safety Pick to Top Safety Pick+ and dropped the footnote that had limited the award to certain cars. That is a real improvement inside one model year. It is also not what owners write to the government about.

They have filed 423 complaints with NHTSA about the 2021 model year. Hyundai sold 81,905 Palisades in calendar 2020 and 86,282 in 2021 and the 2021 model year sold across both, so that is 423 filings against somewhere in the tens of thousands of cars.

The basics

Same Ulsan plant, same 3.8-liter V6, same body and dashboard for 2021, all of it carrying through 2022 before the 2023 refresh.

Two things changed on the order sheet. The Calligraphy arrived, a new trim above the Limited with Nappa leather and a different grille — so a 2021 can be a Calligraphy, and a 2020 cannot. And the headlights moved.

Specs

From Hyundai’s official 2021 Palisade product guide.

Nothing in that table moved from 2020. The engine, the gear ratios, the dimensions and the fuel numbers are the same figures in the same order.

What moved is which trims carry what:

Those two lines moved together on the 2020 car and they stop moving together here. The headlights went to everyone. The suspension stayed behind a package.

How it was received

IIHS made the 2021 Palisade a Top Safety Pick+, one step above the 2020 car’s Top Safety Pick, and NHTSA gave it five stars overall.

The reason is on the ratings page and it is not a crash result. The 2020 award carried a footnote — it applied only to cars with the optional LED headlights, because the halogen projectors on the SE and base SEL rated Marginal. IIHS requires acceptable-or-better headlights across every trim for the higher award. Hyundai made the LED projectors standard, IIHS rated them Good for all trims, and the footnote went away.

So the 2021 is the year the award stopped depending on which one you bought. That was the sharpest thing in the 2020 car’s record, and it is fixed here.

One caution the ratings page carries in the other direction. IIHS later added a tougher side-impact test that did not exist in 2021, and this car rates Marginal on it. The rating covers the 2020 through 2022 Palisades and comes from crashing a 2022. It was not part of the award.

What owners filed

This comes out of a database that only holds bad news. Nobody writes to NHTSA to say their Palisade has been fine for five years. What follows went wrong for the people who bothered to report it, and the tens of thousands who reported nothing are absent.

Categories are sorted by count and each complaint is counted once. They add up to 402; the remaining 21 are one-offs that don’t form a pattern.

Seat belts — 107

The largest category on this model year by a wide margin, and more than double the 51 on the 2020. Counted here as every filing that names the belt, including the ones NHTSA also tagged airbags; NHTSA’s own grouping separates those, which is why the year-by-year table shows a smaller number.

Sixty-one of the 107 describe the same thing: a belt that was buckled coming undone while the car is moving. From a complaint filed in June 2025 (ODI 11665095):

“On several occasions, between 15-25, one seatbelt (2nd row behind driver) unlatches randomly. We know it’s not because of the user. It will latch (and we know it’s latched because it clicks and there’s no seatbelt warning), but while driving it will unlatch for no apparent reason. A child sits in this position.”

The second row comes up more than any other position — 37 of the 61 mention it, against 29 for the front passenger seat and 19 for the driver’s. Those add up to more than 61 because a single filing often names two or three seats. Several describe a child or a car seat in the belt that came undone.

Another recurring detail is that the dealer cannot make it happen. From September 2025 (ODI 11684629):

“Front passenger side and second row passenger side seatbelt are hard to latch and randomly unlatch.. I took it in for service several times during the warranty to ask them to look at it, and they could never replicate it.”

There is a second symptom in the same 107. Thirty filings describe a belt that is hard to latch or will not stay latched — the failure Hyundai’s recall names when it recalled the 2020–2025 Palisade in September 2025 for buckles that may fail to latch (25V607000).

Sixteen of them describe both, on the same belt. The owner quoted above is one of them: hard to latch and randomly unlatching. That points to one piece of hardware rather than two problems, and the recall’s remedy — replacing the buckle assembly — is what one owner says finally stopped it (ODI 11608430): “Buckle was replaced and have not had any issues since.”

So the recall is not aimed at the wrong part. What its wording does not say is that the buckle can also open on its own, and that is what most owners here are describing. Fifty-three of the 61 were filed before the recall existed. The earliest is February 2022.

NHTSA looked at exactly this. On August 7, 2024 its Office of Defects Investigation opened PE24021 into inadvertent seat belt unlatching on 2020–2023 Palisades, and closed it on December 12, 2025 in view of the recall. Hyundai’s recall filing, quoted in that closing, says what the part does: buckle components made out of specification interfere inside the latch channel and add friction, worse in cold weather, and a belt inserted slowly may not fully latch. Nowhere in that record — not the recall, not the investigation file — does Hyundai call the belt opening on its own a defect.

A buckle that never fully latched is a buckle that can come open later. That is the bridge between the 61 and the 30, and it is why sixteen filings describe both.

None of the 61 reports a crash. One reports an injury.

Windshields — 45

Down from 103 on the 2020, and the drop is real rather than a trick of the cars being younger: 25 of these 45 were filed in 2021, when the cars were new, and the count falls to single digits by 2023.

The complaints read the same as the earlier year — a small impact producing a crack out of proportion to it, or no impact at all. From March 2026 (ODI 11724099), on a car that had not been driven in four days:

“Large crack formed without any projectile involved. Car was sitting in the garage and temperature was around 40 degrees. Crack starts from the bottom of the windshield near the driver’s side and extends upward about 12 inches. The car had been sitting in the garage for 4 days without being driven. Vehicle only has 21,455 miles but is out of warranty due to age.”

There is still no recall and no service campaign. It remains an out-of-pocket item.

Sunroof — 35

Twenty-two of these describe the panoramic glass breaking. One owner’s entire filing reads: “My moonroof spontaneously exploded” (ODI 11744894).

Eleven describe the other failure, which is the roof jamming — a track that fractures, or a wind deflector that binds and takes the glass with it. Hyundai issued a service bulletin on the deflectors; one owner names it (ODI 11680604). The remaining two say the sunroof broke without saying which part. The 2020 car drew 20 sunroof filings out of 526, and this year it is 35 out of 423.

Oil consumption — 32

Down from 73 on the 2020, but these cars are a year younger and the filings are still arriving: 13 came in during 2025 and 16 in 2026.

Thirteen of these 32 also describe the car stalling or the engine failing. As on the 2020, each filing is counted once and oil takes priority, so those 13 sit here rather than in the engine section — which means the 21 in that section understates how many owners describe an engine quitting.

Rear shocks — 30

Half the 2020 count, and only two filings name the self-leveling shocks explicitly against sixteen on the 2020. The rest describe rear shock or strut failure without the term.

Nine give a mileage and they run from 33,000 to 84,000. These cars are a year younger than the 2020s, so this is a category to watch rather than one that has finished arriving.

The self-leveling suspension is still trim-dependent — standard from SEL Convenience up, unavailable on the SE. Two of these 30 name it. The other 28 do not say which suspension the car had, so read this section as rear shocks generally, not as a Limited-and-up problem.

Screens and electrical — 25

Head unit failures, dead batteries, backup cameras. Two describe the digital instrument cluster blanking out while driving, which takes the speedometer with it.

No recall covers any of this.

Child safety locks — 23

This one does not exist on the 2020 car. Not “fewer” — the 2020’s 526 filings contain none at all, and the 2022 draws ten.

The Palisade’s rear child locks are electronic, switched from the driver’s door panel rather than a lever in the door jamb. Seventeen of the 23 describe the same behavior: the locks cycle open and closed with an audible click instead of engaging, and thirteen report a warning on the instrument panel. Ten say it starts on its own — walking up with the key fob, or while driving — rather than only when the switch is pressed.

What the owners care about is what happens next (ODI 11643828):

“Child safety locks failed and clicked attempting to engage until turned off.With the locks unable to engage, children able to utilize windows and open doors which put their safety at risk. Replaced under warranty.”

A lock that clicks instead of engaging is a lock that is not holding the door, and three filings say exactly that — the rear doors could still be opened with the child lock switched on. Beyond those three I would be guessing. Sorting twenty-three free-text filings into “never engaged” and “engaged, then let go” comes down to judgment on about half of them.

That owner’s last three words are the part a buyer needs: replaced under warranty. There is a fix. On a car this age it may now be yours to pay for.

There is no recall for this.

The 2021 Telluride is the useful comparison. It shares this platform, and two of its three filings describe the same clicking — one owner points at the connection directly: “This also happens with Palisades which happen to share the same frame as the Telluride.” Whether the lock hardware is the same part is not something the complaint record can settle. What it can say is the count: three out of 349 filings there, 23 out of 423 here.

Engine shutdown and engine failure — 21

Filings where a stall or a failure was the main complaint. Another 13 sit in the oil section above, so treat 21 as a floor.

The rest is thin

Transmission 14, steering 12, tow hitch 11, brakes 10, seats 8, wiper motor 8, wipers blocked by snow 7, driver assistance 6, airbags 3, wind noise 2, radiator and coolant 2, third-row seat folding 1.

Wind noise is worth one line because of how far it fell. The 2020 drew 24 filings about a whistle from the front doors; this year drew two.

Recalls

Six recalls cover the 2021 Palisade. Two of them do not apply to the 2020 car.

21V840000 — brake fluid contamination, reported October 2021, 2021 model year only. Contaminated fluid can swell the master cylinder inner-cup seals and reduce braking performance. Dealers replace the master cylinder and flush the fluid. Letters mailed December 24, 2021. Hyundai’s number is 212.

Worth saying plainly: no complaint in this data set mentions this recall or brake fluid. Ten filings concern brakes at all. The recall exists and the complaint record does not show a matching wave behind it, which is what a recall caught early is supposed to look like.

22V627000 — windshield wiper motor, reported August 2022, covering 2020–2021 cars. Driver-side wiper arm replaced. Letters mailed December 13, 2022.

23V180000 — reported March 2023, covering 2021–2023 cars, an expansion of the recall above. This one names the cause: snow or ice building up on the windshield makes the wiper motor work intermittently or stop. Same remedy, the driver-side wiper arm. Letters mailed May 15, 2023. Hyundai’s number is 243.

That expansion is the answer to something in the 2020 car’s record. Owners there filed about snow packing into the wiper well and stopping the blades, and I counted those separately because no recall named them. For the 2021 through 2023 cars, one does.

22V633000 — tow hitch harness, reported August 2022, covering 2020–2022 cars with a factory or dealer-accessory harness. Debris and moisture on the circuit board can short and start a fire. NHTSA’s advice was to park outside and away from structures until the repair is done. Letters mailed May 18, 2023.

25V607000 — seat belt buckles that may fail to latch, reported September 2025, covering 2020–2025 cars. Interim letters October 23, 2025; final remedy letters began June 2026 and run through December 2026.

26V034000 — third-row side curtain airbags that may deploy improperly, reported January 2026, covering 2020–2025 cars. The vehicles do not comply with the federal ejection mitigation standard. Interim letters March 13, 2026; final remedy letters June through December 2026.

The last two are still mid-remedy. A 2021 Palisade on a lot today may be waiting on either.

What doesn’t show up in the complaints

The headlights, which is the point. Hyundai put LED projectors on every 2021 trim and the complaint record contains no headlight failures at all — the same result as the 2020 car, which had the LEDs on fewer trims. On the 2020 Telluride, which shares this platform, headlights are the single largest category at 165. Whatever is different about these lamps, it is not the trim they came on.

Nothing about the third row, the second-row space, or the cargo area. Nothing about the Calligraphy’s added equipment.

Across all 423 filings there are 8 crashes, 19 injuries, and one fire.

What the complaint curve says

Filings by year: 16 in 2020, then 57 in 2021, 39 in 2022, 52 in 2023, 63 in 2024, then 118 in 2025 and 78 so far in 2026.

The 2021 hump is the windshields, exactly as on the 2020 car — new cars, fragile glass, discovered fast.

The 2025 spike is the seat belts. Fifty-three of the 61 unlatching reports came in before the September 2025 recall, and the recall then pulled in a second wave of owners who could not get parts. Hyundai’s basic warranty is five years or 60,000 miles, whichever comes first, and a 2021 crossed 60,000 somewhere in 2024 or 2025 — so the oil and shock filings arriving now sit on the same warranty boundary the 2020 car’s did. Whether that is failures increasing with mileage, owners reporting once the bill is theirs, or both, the complaint record cannot separate.

The seat belts are not on that curve. A buckle that opens by itself is not a wear item, and the reports start in early 2022 on cars barely a year old.

If you’re looking at one

What follows is not a verdict. It is what to do with ten minutes in a parking lot, ordered by what costs you most if you skip it.

Buckle every belt, including the second row, and pull on each one. Sixty-one filings describe a buckled belt coming undone while driving, most often in the second row. Dealers in these filings could not reproduce it on demand, which means a clean test drive proves less than usual.

Know that the warranty on the buckles is long, and that it follows the car. Alongside the recall, Hyundai issued warranty extension Z06 in April 2025. It covers the seat belt buckles on 2020–2025 Palisades for 15 years or 150,000 miles, whichever comes first, from the car’s original in-service date, and Hyundai’s letter says it is valid for subsequent owners — far past the five years or 60,000 miles that covers the rest of the car. Nobody will mail that letter to you; it went to whoever owned the car in 2025.

Switch the rear child locks on and off from the driver’s door. Seventeen of the 23 filings describe the locks clicking or cycling instead of engaging, and three say outright that the rear doors could still be opened with the lock switched on. The 2020 car has none of these at all. There is no recall, so nobody will raise it for you.

Run the VIN at nhtsa.gov/recalls before anything else. Two recalls on this car are still mid-remedy — the seat belt buckles and the third-row curtain airbags — and Hyundai’s final letters run through December 2026.

Ask whether recall 22V633000 is completed, and get the answer in writing. That is the tow hitch harness fire recall. If the car has no hitch it may not apply; confirm rather than assume.

Ask whether recall 21V840000 was done. Brake fluid and master cylinder, 2021 only, letters mailed December 2021. It is old enough that most cars have had it, which is exactly why a seller may not know the number.

Find out whether it has the self-leveling rear suspension. Standard from SEL Convenience up, unavailable on the SE. Only two of the 30 rear-shock filings here name it, so this is a question to ask rather than a risk you can read off the trim badge. Thirty filings against sixty on the 2020 means this is a cost that shows up later, not one this year has finished paying.

Pull the dipstick cold and ask for oil change records. Thirty-two filings concern oil consumption and 29 of them arrived in 2025 and 2026, on cars that are only now reaching the mileage where it appears.

Open and close the sunroof twice, fully. That tests the track and the wind deflector, which is what eleven of the 35 filings are about. It will not tell you anything about the 22 where the glass broke on its own, and those arrive with no warning at all.

Worry less about the headlights. They are standard LED on every 2021, and not one filing describes a headlight failing — but the 2020 record is just as clean. What improved is which cars got the good lamps, not how the lamps held up.

Numbers worth writing down

Next in this series: the 2022 Palisade, the last year before the refresh.

Sources

• NHTSA complaint database — 423 filings for the 2021 Palisade, retrieved 2026-08-27
• Hyundai warranty extension Z06 — seat belt buckles, 2020–2025 Palisade, 15 years/150,000 miles, April 2025
• NHTSA preliminary evaluation PE24021 — inadvertent seat belt unlatch, 2020–2023 Palisade, 37 complaints at opening, August 2024; closed December 2025 per NHTSA’s investigations database
• Hyundai 2021 Palisade specifications (official)
• Hyundai 2021 Palisade features and trim availability (official)
• IIHS — 2021 Hyundai Palisade ratings
• GoodCarBadCar — Hyundai Palisade sales figures

Specifications checked against Hyundai’s official product guides. Complaint counts and quotes came from NHTSA’s public database on 2026-08-27, and each quote carries its ODI number. Recall applicability varies by VIN. This is a summary of what owners and the press have reported, not buying or repair advice.