Other electrical problem on the 1998 Buick Regal
1 fire 1 of the 17 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 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 electrical problem gets reported
There are 17 reports of other electrical problem on the 1998 Buick Regal, 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 85,000 miles. It is the 6th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 102,500 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
Of these reports, 1 a fire 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 $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 13 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2019, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 2003 at 150,000 miles.
By volume the 2011 carries the most reports, with 49; the 1998 has 17. 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.
Vehicle going dead, would initially (this started about a month ago) restart and run fine until it went dead again. Speed does not seem to be a factor, goes dead at highway speeds and when braking to stop at intersections. This is unbelievably dangerous. Sometimes the gauges and dash lights will move on their own, sometimes not. Four days ago, at a local garage, the car would not re-start. Today it started and then went dead (I may be mistaken on this, but the key actually felt like it was heating up) on the way to yet another garage, would not re-start and had to be towed. So far no-one has been able to find a problem. The vehicle has been on a diagnostic computer twice, both times it showed no history and no problem. *tr
Driving home and car wouldn't go over 5 miler per hr and the check engine light came on, then the temperature gage went to hot so pulled over and smoke came thru the vent in the car and out from the gear shifter. Once I got out I heard a loud pop and oil starting leaking then the car caught on fire. Fire department and police came. I had received a recall on spark plugs back in the beginning of the year and had the dealership replacement them but never received any notification about any further recalls. *tr
The car went completely dead after stopping at the bank following 25 minutes of driving. There is no power, the key is locked in the ignition, and cannot be jumpstarted by using another car. It can jumpstart with a machine and run for a few minutes, afterwards it instantly dies and locks in place. This happened when I was on a regular street, luckily with no traffic at the time. *tr
Also reported on the 1998 Buick Regal
Other engine problem
Steering rack, gear or tie rod failure
Other steering problem
Tail light, brake light or signal failure
Other body or interior problem
Other visibility problem
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 17 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 17 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 1998 Buick Regal?
Across 6 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 105,000 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 electrical problem on the 1998 Buick Regal?
17 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