Unclassified problem on the 2000 Acura TL
5 crashes 5 of the 34 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.
Only 12 reports for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.
When unclassified problem gets reported
Owners of the 2000 Acura TL report unclassified problem at a median of 115,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 80,000 miles and a quarter after 145,000 miles, from 12 reports that carried an odometer reading.
It is the 41st most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 20,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 155,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 134,612 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
A spread this wide points at use rather than design. Towing, climate, service history and city mileage all move a failure like this, so the median is a weak guide to any individual car.
17% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18,618 miles | 80,801 miles | 113,000 miles | 145,250 miles | 153,230 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, 5 a crash 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.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 15 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2012, at a median of 25,000 miles, and latest on the 2002 at 145,000 miles.
By volume the 2004 carries the most reports, with 198; the 2000 has 34. 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.
Iintermittent airbag system failure on acura 2000tl. The yellow light indicator side airbag turn on the multiple times during the trip, stay on for a couple seconds and disappear after that. When the yellow light "side airbag" is on the airabag system is disabled. *ak
Airbag deployed while car sitting still in park (in my garage). I was starting the car in my garage when the passenger side - side airbag (aka; side curtain airbag) mounted in the passenger seat deployed without cause or reason!!!! *tr acura looked at the car for full week and returned the car to me with no explanation. Later, I called them and it was then that they told me (over the phone) that what I said was impossible, airbags don't just go off without reason. Now they are calling me a liar. Acura gave the response always given; acura then used their normal excuse (I found multiple examples of this). They then said the airbag must have deployed due to minor scratches they found underneath the front underside of the car (this car is a no accident, one owner car and is pristine all over including under the car) so: they stated that a) I had to have been driving the car (calling me a liar) and b) that I had to have hit a pot hole or something in the road thus causing an airbag to deploy (in an unoccupied seat), as though that would be a good reason for an airbag to deploy! So: airbag explodes sitting still, in a seat with no one…
Today june 2, 2013, my 2000 acura 32tl had sudden acceleration that resulted in a crash with a parked vehicle on the road while I was backing out of the driveway. After hitting the parked car, I tried to pull the car forward and tried to stop. Instead, it started moving forward uncontrollably, even though I was pushing on the brake pedal. I lost control of the vehicle to stop. It took control and started moving forward through road, driveway and neighboring lawn. I steered for about 100 feet and hit the corner of the neighboring home and finally stopped. It was for about 5 seconds of frightening moment that my family and I went through. It was sunny and 85 deg f. The car had severe damages on back and front bumpers. Tire marks on the road, driveway, and lawn, plus property damage to the corner of the house were sustained. Front airbags deployed and hit my wife and I in the face. I am wondering if there are ongoing investigations by NHTSA on similar incidents. Please advise. *tr
Also reported on the 2000 Acura TL
Other powertrain problem
Other visibility problem
Complete transmission failure
Airbag warning light or occupant sensor fault
Control module (ECM/PCM/BCM) failure
Airbag inflator rupture
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 34 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.
Complaints are voluntary, so 34 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 unclassified problem happen on the 2000 Acura TL?
Across 12 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 115,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 80,000 miles and a quarter after 145,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is unclassified problem on the 2000 Acura TL?
34 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.5 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