Complete transmission failure on the 1998 Buick Lesabre
1 crash 1 of the 10 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 3 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 complete transmission failure gets reported
There are 10 reports of complete transmission failure on the 1998 Buick Lesabre, 3 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 98,000 miles. It is the 12th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 102,116 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, 1 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.
Putting it right typically runs $2,800–$8,000 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.
This mode is classified as critical, which means a failure can leave the car unable to stop, steer, or stay out of the way of traffic. It is weighted accordingly in the risk score.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 3 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2001, at a median of 55,000 miles, and latest on the 1998 at 100,000 miles.
By volume the 2001 carries the most reports, with 13; the 1998 has 10. 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.
After taking the vehicle to dealer for a recall repairs, vehicle was cutting off, and the check engine light was on. Vehicle idled roughly. Consumer told mechanic that this problem did not exist prior to bringing it in for the recall repairs, and was told that it would go away on its own. *ak the vehicle transmission failed . *nm
After taking the vehicle to dealer for a recall repairs, vehicle was cutting off, and the check engine light was on. Vehicle idled roughly. Consumer told mechanic that this problem did not exist prior to bringing it in for the recall repairs, and was told that it would go away on its own. *ak the vehicle transmission failed . *nm
1998 buick lesabre crashed at low speed causing property damage, engine cut out while driving at low speed. Car was declared a total loss, leaving me with bills of over $10,000 for lost car, repairs, insurance. Problem had arisen on and off since acquiring car at 65,000 miles..twice taken in to gm dealership for this problem. Could not find anything wrong. Problem would disappear for months and then reappear. Numerous mechanics checked and could not find source of problem. After car was declared a total, news story ran about toyota cars stalling out due to defective engine control modules (NHTSA report #pe09054). The defective part was made by delphi..which was owned by general motors..makers of the buick lesabre. I contacted gm headquarters to ask if the control module in my part was made by gm/delphi. They refused to answer me, saying that as no recall had been issued and my car was gone,they could do nothing for me. Meanwhile, it turns out that gm did own delphi in 1998, did manufacture those modules, which had to have been in the buick lesabres,and were years later causing identical engine failures in toyotas. Those parts are…
Also reported on the 1998 Buick Lesabre
Other engine problem
Other fuel system problem
Exhaust leak or fumes in the cabin
Other electrical problem
Radiator or coolant leak
No-start or intermittent start failure
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 10 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 10 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 complete transmission failure happen on the 1998 Buick Lesabre?
Across 3 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 100,000 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 complete transmission failure on the 1998 Buick Lesabre?
10 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