Other brake problem on the 2000 Buick Lesabre
Only 6 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 brake problem gets reported
There are 13 reports of other brake problem on the 2000 Buick Lesabre, 6 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 16th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 95,750 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 $300–$1,800 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 2001, at a median of 20,000 miles, and latest on the 1999 at 160,000 miles.
By volume the 2000 is the worst of them, which makes this a problem of this specific year rather than of the model as a whole.
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.
On december 12, 2009, I was driving down the road and made a right hand turn. At that time, my car made a loud noise (my husband thought I ran over a trash can) the brakes immediately came on and the car pulled to the right. I moved forward again and immediately the brakes came on again and pulled the right. The stability system activated came on. I had to drive very slow to get my car home and this happened the whole way. I was very close to my home. A computer has been put on the car and the codes don't make sense to the mechanic. The car was then towed to the garage, has been there since 12/17/09 and they can not figure out what is going on. If I would have been out on the highway we would have been killed. What auto co. Would put a system on your vehicle that would throw your brakes on for no reason. *tr
Tl*the contact owns a 2000 buick lesabre. The contact stated that the brakes were constantly engaged to some degree; the vehicle would make a grinding noise and the rotors would get hot. The contact discovered loose nuts on the vacuum booster and exhaust fumes were being emitted into the cabin. The contact called the manufacturer and referenced recall 99v238000 (service brakes, hydraulic:power assist:vacuum) but was informed that the vehicle was not included. The vehicle had not been repaired. The current and failure mileages were approximately 43,000.
Starting early june my son called me to inform me that the buick was stalling out on him all the time. He said that he could be driving at any speed and the car would just shut off, causing all electrical, steering, and brakes to not work. He attends school in western pennsylvania in the mountains and this worried me. I had the vehicle serviced and each time was diagnosed with different things and nothing fixed the problem. I have since switched vehicles with him for his safety and have contacted my local buick dealership to find that the ignition cylinder is the cause of the failure that the ignition cylinder is periodically loosing connection to the key which has a chip in it (quits talking to), and shuts the vehicle off. Like an alarm feature. The dealership informed me that this has been an on going problem with the lesabre and other vehicles for quite a while. In order to fix it I will have to purchase a new ignition cylinder, possibly a couple of keys, have them sent to a locksmith, get them keyed to the cylinder, then install the new ignition cylinder. Yet it is not one of the vehicles listed on the gm ignition recall list…
Also reported on the 2000 Buick Lesabre
Other visibility problem
Other electrical problem
Window regulator or power window failure
Other engine problem
Other body or interior problem
Other wheel or tire problem
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 13 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 13 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 brake problem happen on the 2000 Buick Lesabre?
Across 6 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 95,000 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 brake problem on the 2000 Buick Lesabre?
13 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