AtWhatMileage
Body · 44 owner reports

Other body or interior problem on the 2008 Chevrolet Avalanche

4 injuries 4 of the 44 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.

Reports of this failure 44
With an odometer reading 32
Reports per 1,000 built 1.5 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 13%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 4
Typical repair $200–$2,000
What it means when it happens Moderate
Rank among this year's problems 2nd

When other body or interior problem gets reported

Owners of the 2008 Chevrolet Avalanche report other body or interior problem at a median of 62,500 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 50,000 miles and a quarter after 80,000 miles, from 32 reports that carried an odometer reading.

A part like this is normally expected to survive 88,000 miles. It is the 2nd most-reported problem on this model year.

The mileage distribution

The reported range runs from 30,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 100,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 68,950 miles across the middle 80% of reports.

When the reports scatter this far, the mileage is telling you about how these cars were driven more than about the part itself.

13% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 32 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
31,050 miles 49,501 miles 61,300 miles 81,000 miles 100,000 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, 4 an injury 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 $200–$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 9 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2004, at a median of 1,000 miles, and latest on the 2009 at 75,000 miles.

By volume the 2007 carries the most reports, with 57; the 2008 has 44. 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.

What owners wrote

Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.

This afternoon while going out shopping I badly cut my finger while opening the door of my vehicle. The door handle of my vehicle is plated in chrome. This chrome is now coming undone, and is razor sharp. I plan on reporting this to the dealer tomorrow, but would also like register my complaint with NHTSA. *tr

56,000 miles NHTSA complaint 878979 filed 2011-09-12

Tl* the contact owns a 2008 chevrolet avalanche. The contact stated that the chrome on the interior passenger and driver side door handles were deteriorating. The vehicle was taken to the dealer who did not provide an explanation for the failure. The manufacturer was not made aware of the problem. The vehicle was not repaired. The failure mileage was 30,000 and the current mileage was 37,000. Consumer cancelled complaint 04/13/2012*lj

30,000 miles NHTSA complaint 912224 filed 2012-03-29

Presently three of my 2008 chevy avalanche ltz door handles have broken off. I have no kids and no excessive usage of the back two doors but they broke the worse. The gmc repair shop explained that most of these door handles brake off in the winter. Therefore, I'd say this is a known defect. When you pay almost 50k for a new truck and within 4 years you are driving a vehicle with only one door handle that is pathetic. I will never buy another gmc chevy and I will never recommend a chevy avalanche. There are multiple other defects with this truck as well. This is not a quality made vehicle. *tr

60,000 miles NHTSA complaint 912658 filed 2012-04-02

Also reported on the 2008 Chevrolet Avalanche

Airbag inflator rupture

74 reports median 90k

Instrument cluster or gauge failure

11 reports median 110k

Other electrical problem

10 reports median 51k

Other engine problem

7 reports median 111k

Excessive oil consumption

5 reports median 73k

How far this goes

Complaints are voluntary, so 44 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 body or interior problem happen on the 2008 Chevrolet Avalanche?

Across 32 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 62,500 miles. A quarter were filed before 50,000 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 other body or interior problem on the 2008 Chevrolet Avalanche?

44 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 1.5 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