NHTSA complaint #11638647

Owner complaint summary

I'm not sure if there is a problem with any of the components, but the radar sensor malfunction impacted the vehicle's braking system. Situation: On [XXX], I was driving with my wife and her nephew from my home (Ankeny, IA) to Indiana on [XXX] [XXX] and [XXX] [XXX] . It was snowing that day. As usual, there were other vehicles on the highway, semi-trucks, pickup trucks, cars. The snow was splashing on to my front bumper, lights, radar sensor and windshield. As it was snowing, I did not engage the cruise control feature. We were around 30 miles from Iowa City, I was passing a semi-truck, a message was displayed on the dash to clean the radar sensor. I thought of pulling over in a safe spot to clean it up. At the same time, "front collision off" and "brake system" icon lite up. The road also changed from downhill to uphill. Suddenly, the vehicle started swaying in my lane, towards the semi-truck wheels and towards the guard rails. I was able to control the steering and come to a stop. That was a near death experience. I got my breath for a minute and cleared the radar sensor. After cleaning the radar sensor, the vehicle was driving fine going up and down the rolling hills of Iowa. Concern: Why a blocked radar sensor should impact the braking system? I understood the impact to adaptive cruise control and front collision features. Are the traction control, ABS, or some other system disabled due to malfunction of the radar sensor? Can the radar sensor wires being bad disables the braking ability? INFORMATION REDACTED PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(B)(6)