Other body or interior problem on the 2004 Audi A6
Only 2 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 other body or interior problem gets reported
There are 2 reports of other body or interior problem on the 2004 Audi A6, 2 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 88,000 miles. It is the 9th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 44,500 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
Putting it right typically runs $200–$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 10 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2014, at a median of 10,000 miles, and latest on the 2001 at 100,000 miles.
By volume the 1999 carries the most reports, with 16; the 2004 has 0. 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.
I filed a complaint about my 2004 audi a6 in dec of 2009. I reported that my back passenger seat had almost caught fire, and was burnt. Both my seat cushion and upper back cushion were burned. At the time I had not contacted audi, yet filed a complaint, because I felt and still do that this was a major safety hazard. Since my last complaint I did contact both my dealership (roth audi in erie, pa) and audi headquarters aka: audi customer relations. They were very willing to work with me, seemed extremely concerned and said not to worry because I still had a warranty left on my car. Well after the car returned home from the dealership they only fixed half of the problem! The dealership said audi told them to replace the bottom cushion only. The dealership painted over the top cushion and I found this out after I began wiping my seat, because I thought I had smudge marks on it... Nope paint was coming off and could see the burned seat underneath the paint. I called audi back, and they had me take it back to the dealer to be assessed again. After 6 days or so the person I had been dealing with from audi customer relations called to…
I have a 2004 audi a6 quattro 3.0 l. This weekend my grown son was sitting in the back seat and had his suit in a garment bag next to him. The heated seats were both on in the back. They smelled something burning and it turned out it was the heated seat. It burned the garment bag right into his suit and ruined the suit jacket as well. My seat looks like it was ready to catch on fire. I have 44,000 miles on this car. I have not contacted audi yet, and my fear is that when I do they will make me pay for this. I feel this is a major safety hazard and now I have to worry about the rest of the seats as well. I can't imagine what would have happened if a person would have been sitting there! *tr
Also reported on the 2004 Audi A6
Other wheel or tire problem
Fuel tank, filler or EVAP failure
ABS module or sensor failure
Overheating
Airbag failed to deploy in a crash
Other engine problem
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 2 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 2 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 body or interior problem happen on the 2004 Audi A6?
Across 2 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 45,000 miles. A quarter were filed before — and a quarter after —. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is other body or interior problem on the 2004 Audi A6?
2 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.2 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