Control module (ECM/PCM/BCM) failure on the 2006 Cadillac Sts
3 fires 3 of the 11 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.
When control module (ecm/pcm/bcm) failure gets reported
Owners of the 2006 Cadillac Sts report control module (ECM/PCM/BCM) failure at a median of 65,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 55,000 miles and a quarter after 80,000 miles, from 11 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 92,000 miles. It is the 3rd most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 50,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 80,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 27,343 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
A window that narrow is the signature of a part that fails on its own schedule rather than on how the car is driven — which is usually a design or supplier problem rather than wear and tear.
9% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 50,799 miles | 56,900 miles | 63,000 miles | 78,142 miles | 78,142 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, 3 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 $700–$3,000 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 4 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2006, at a median of 65,000 miles, and latest on the 2003 at 110,000 miles.
By volume the 2006 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.
(1) our 2006 cadillac sts repeatedly fails to sense the occupant in the passenger side of the vehicle and fails to trigger the passenger-side air bag sensor to activate. This is a safety issue. The only way the sensor will activate is if the passenger squirms around in the seat in an awkward way to have the sensor sense the occupant. But this is not always possible and on two occasions the passenger airbag sensor actually shut off after a refueling operation and restarting the vehicle even though the passenger never left the vehicle and had not changed position. (2) failure of the passenger sensor to sense an occupant, if not noticed by the driver, or passenger and taking action to attempt to reset it would cause the air bag not to deploy in the event of a collision. (3) the dealership tried for over a week to solve the problem, but would only say that the procedure to activate the sensor requires the passenger to enter and sit in the vehicle in a certain convoluted way that is basically un-natural and impossible for certain passengers to achieve. After repeated calls to gm customer service and raising the issue with the better…
The engine shut off when I was driving on a side street at 20 MPH, and also shut off 5 times as I was driving on the highway at 65 MPH. The cluster panel turned off, but the radio stayed on. The odometer showed a message engine control module (ECM). I pulled over, put the car in park, and restarted the vehicle each time. The cadillac dealership said that rear axle pinion seal was the only recall for my sts, but I am experiencing NHTSA campaign number: 06v020000 , and NHTSA campaign number: 06v007000 also. *tr
The engine shut off when I was driving on a side street at 20 MPH, and also shut off 5 times as I was driving on the highway at 65 MPH. The cluster panel turned off, but the radio stayed on. The odometer showed a message engine control module (ECM). I pulled over, put the car in park, and restarted the vehicle each time. The cadillac dealership said that rear axle pinion seal was the only recall for my sts, but I am experiencing NHTSA campaign number: 06v020000 , and NHTSA campaign number: 06v007000 also. *tr
Also reported on the 2006 Cadillac Sts
Other engine problem
Other electrical problem
Airbag warning light or occupant sensor fault
Other body or interior problem
Other fuel system problem
Catalytic converter failure
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 11 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 control module (ecm/pcm/bcm) failure happen on the 2006 Cadillac Sts?
Across 11 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 65,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 55,000 miles and a quarter after 80,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is control module (ecm/pcm/bcm) failure on the 2006 Cadillac Sts?
11 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.5 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