Other electrical problem on the 1999 Audi A6
13 fires 6 injuries 19 of the 22 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 1999 Audi A6 report other electrical problem at a median of 70,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 55,000 miles and a quarter after 95,000 miles, from 17 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 85,000 miles. It is the 1st most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 40,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 100,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 63,000 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.
12% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 38,800 miles | 54,000 miles | 72,000 miles | 93,000 miles | 101,800 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, 13 a fire and 6 an injury are 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 15 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2019, at a median of 10,000 miles, and latest on the 2006 at 110,000 miles.
By volume the 2019 carries the most reports, with 40; the 1999 has 22. 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.
While driving my audi 1999 a6 quattro 2.8l my veh statred to smoke from the dashboard. I pulled off the road and with in 5 minutes my veh was totally destroyed. Thankfully there was no injuries
As the car was driving normal, light smoke began coming out of the air vents. Nothing was on, such as the AC or the heater. There were no signals or any alarms lit on the dashboard. In terms of minutes, without any warning, the light smoke turned into pitch black smoke, immediately turning into flames. In a matter of a minute, there was an explosion that completely destroyed the entire interior as well as the exterior of the vehicle. However, the vehicle was left with no visible fire damage to the engine or front end. *nlm
I own a 1999 audi a-6 sedan. Today it had a fire in the dashboard near the driver's side. Fortunately it occurred while it was at home where I had access to fir extinguishers and tools to disconnect the battery. It took 3 extinguishers to put out the blaze. Just moments earlier, my wife and 5 year old son returned home from church complaining of a toxic smell in the car! We were very fortunate the situation was not worse!*ak
Also reported on the 1999 Audi A6
Fuel gauge or level sensor failure
ABS module or sensor failure
Steering rack, gear or tie rod failure
Other body or interior problem
Other speed control problem
Control module (ECM/PCM/BCM) failure
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 22 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 1999 Audi A6?
Across 17 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 70,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 55,000 miles and a quarter after 95,000 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 1999 Audi A6?
22 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 1.3 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