Unclassified problem on the 1997 Buick Lesabre
12 crashes 1 fire 10 injuries 1 death 24 of the 36 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 9 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 1997 Buick Lesabre report unclassified problem at a median of 115,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 75,000 miles and a quarter after 160,000 miles, from 9 reports that carried an odometer reading.
It is the 63rd most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 45,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 170,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 123,165 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.
11% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 47,269 miles | 77,000 miles | 115,000 miles | 159,000 miles | 170,434 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, 12 a crash, 1 a fire, 10 an injury and 1 a fatality 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.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 10 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2005, at a median of 20,000 miles, and latest on the 1997 at 115,000 miles.
By volume the 2002 carries the most reports, with 41; the 1997 has 36. 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.
Malfunctioning air bag. We hit a deer and the impact deployed both front air bags. The passenger air bag came out at an angle so as to hit my husband,(who was in the passenger seat) in the groin area. The air bag ruptured his right testicle and he had to have surgery. This has caused us to owe some extensive medical bills at this point. We had insurance, but it will not pay all of the bills. I feel that we should not be responsible for any medical bills for this type of accident,since it was caused by the air bag not deploying as it should have. *jb
While driving consumer's vehicle was hit on the passenger's side and the front air bags inadvertently deployed. Driver's side air bag caught on fire after the driver was evacuated. The interior of the vehicle was consumed by the fire. Driver sustained minor injuries, and was transported to the hospital. Fire department confirmed that the fire started from driver's side air bag. *ak
Dt: the consumer stated the horn will not stop blowing, and the air bag assembly is making a noise. The sound is coming out of the steering wheel. When driving the horn just starts blowing out of nowhere, it just starts blowing, specifically states the consumer. When pressing the horn pad it will stop sometimes. One has to press in a certain spot. The car is a 1997 buick lesabre. The consumer is going to call and see what gm can do. This has been happening for two weeks.*ak
Also reported on the 1997 Buick Lesabre
Other engine problem
Other electrical problem
Other fuel system problem
Other body or interior problem
Seat belt or retractor failure
Other powertrain problem
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 36 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 36 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 1997 Buick Lesabre?
Across 9 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 115,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 75,000 miles and a quarter after 160,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is unclassified problem on the 1997 Buick Lesabre?
36 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 1.0 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