Wiring harness or short circuit on the 2004 Chevrolet Colorado
2 fires 2 of the 18 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 wiring harness or short circuit gets reported
Owners of the 2004 Chevrolet Colorado report wiring harness or short circuit at a median of 95,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 50,000 miles and a quarter after 180,000 miles, from 13 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 88,000 miles. It is the 7th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 25,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 180,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 155,960 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
A spread this wide points at use rather than design. Towing, climate, service history and city mileage all move a failure like this, so the median is a weak guide to any individual car.
15% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26,440 miles | 48,000 miles | 96,000 miles | 182,000 miles | 182,400 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, 2 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 $400–$3,500 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 2018, at a median of 900 miles, and latest on the 2008 at 175,000 miles.
By volume the 2004 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.
Blower fan works intermittently. Finally stopped working on settings 1,2 and 3, will only work on setting 4. Replaced resister 1st from dealer, the climate switch panel. Finally the fan wouldn't run @ all, took to local mechanic replaced wiring harness & fan motor. Took about a year to get truck fully repaired. *tr
Tl* the contact owns a 2004 chevrolet colorado. The contact stated that the resister for the wiring harness was defective and smoke would emit from the glove compartment. The dealer and manufacturer were made aware of the failure, but offered no assistance. The vehicle was not repaired. The failure mileage was 96,000 and the current mileage was 103,000. The VIN was unavailable.
Tl* the contact owns a 2004 chevrolet colorado. The contact stated that the brake light switch was replaced numerous times for a recurring failure. The contact referenced NHTSA campaign id number: 09v310000 (exterior lighting: brake lights: switch). The dealer replaced the switch under the recall but every 20,000 miles, the switch would fail again. The AC resistor wires were melted, causing the air conditioner to only operate on low. The dealer replaced the wiring harness and the resistor but the failure recurred. The manufacturer was not contacted. The failure mileage was 20,000 and the current mileage was 130,000.
Also reported on the 2004 Chevrolet Colorado
Other body or interior problem
Other electrical problem
Cruise control failure
Other suspension problem
ABS module or sensor failure
Other brake problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 18 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 wiring harness or short circuit happen on the 2004 Chevrolet Colorado?
Across 13 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 95,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 50,000 miles and a quarter after 180,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is wiring harness or short circuit on the 2004 Chevrolet Colorado?
18 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