Headlight failure or clouding on the 2003 Buick Regal
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 headlight failure or clouding gets reported
There are 3 reports of headlight failure or clouding on the 2003 Buick Regal, 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 88,000 miles. It is the 13th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 45,352 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 $150–$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 8 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2015, at a median of 35,000 miles, and latest on the 1998 at 180,000 miles.
By volume the 2013 carries the most reports, with 36; the 2003 has 3. 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.
At night if the high beam lights are on, and I meet a vehicle while moving through a right curve, the dimmer switch cannot be activated because it hits the back of the steering wheel. Since this occurs almost every time I drive at night to go home, I'm afraid it could blind another driver and cause an accident. I have gotten bad reactions from other drivers when I can't dim the lights and meet them on the road. (I don't want to be the victim of road rage.) I have experienced this problem since I bought the vehicle in 2004. The switch broke a few years back and it was replaced, but the new one still had the same problem. The dealership said that was the only model of switch in his catalog. It has a design flaw. It the turn signal handle was designed to be push away from the steering wheel instead of pulling it toward the steering wheel, there would be no problem. *tr
At night if the high beam lights are on, and I meet a vehicle while moving through a right curve, the dimmer switch cannot be activated because it hits the back of the steering wheel. Since this occurs almost every time I drive at night to go home, I'm afraid it could blind another driver and cause an accident. I have gotten bad reactions from other drivers when I can't dim the lights and meet them on the road. (I don't want to be the victim of road rage.) I have experienced this problem since I bought the vehicle in 2004. The switch broke a few years back and it was replaced, but the new one still had the same problem. The dealership said that was the only model of switch in his catalog. It has a design flaw. It the turn signal handle was designed to be push away from the steering wheel instead of pulling it toward the steering wheel, there would be no problem. *tr
The bright /dim headlight controller hits the back of the steering wheel if the steering wheel is in a position during a right direction curve in the road. This has caused the switch to catch in between settings and the headlights turn off. An example of that use would be going around a curve and need to turn bright lights off due to oncoming traffic. To get the headlights back on, the bright / dim switch has to be activated again. This vehicle was purchased new by myself in 2003 and has been a problem for as long as I can remember since owning the car. I forget about the problem when I get home so now I finally report it in 2018. The problem appears to be a factory defect because the switch and steering wheel are not damaged. The information about when the incident happened is only the last incident.
Also reported on the 2003 Buick Regal
Other engine problem
Ignition switch, key fob or immobilizer failure
Other electrical problem
Overheating
Tail light, brake light or signal failure
Other brake problem
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 3 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 3 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 headlight failure or clouding happen on the 2003 Buick Regal?
Across 3 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 headlight failure or clouding on the 2003 Buick Regal?
3 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.1 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