AtWhatMileage
Fuel · 4 owner reports

Fuel tank, filler or EVAP failure on the 2012 Chevrolet Equinox

Only 2 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.

Reports of this failure 4
With an odometer reading 2
Reports per 1,000 built 0.2 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 100%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 0
Typical repair $250–$1,800
What it means when it happens Moderate
Rank among this year's problems 34th

When fuel tank, filler or evap failure gets reported

There are 4 reports of fuel tank, filler or EVAP failure on the 2012 Chevrolet Equinox, 2 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 34th most-reported problem on this model year.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 2 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
— — 23,000 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

Putting it right typically runs $250–$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 6 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2012, at a median of 25,000 miles, and latest on the 2022 at 130,000 miles.

By volume the 2007 carries the most reports, with 28; the 2012 has 4. 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.

Filled up my gas tank and when tank was filled and paid for put in d and a huge bang was heard, looked in my rearview mirror to find the glass was shattered. Three gentlemen came right to the car and asked what happened cause the heard the bang. One of the men cleaned the glass out of my window so I could go 15 miles home. I then made a claim to my insurance company after call the dealership where it was purchased and them telling me it was anything they did, report it to your insurance company. *tr

13,000 miles NHTSA complaint 971964 filed 2013-04-03

Tl* the contact owns a 2012 chevrolet equinox. The contact stated that while driving approximately 55 MPH, the contact ran over a piece of rubber tire tread that was in the road. The contact continued to drive; however, when the contact was stopped at a red light, there was an odor of fuel in the vehicle. The contact then parked the vehicle and discovered fuel leaking from the vehicle. The fire department was called and it was discovered that the fuel tank fractured. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was not made aware of the failure. The approximate failure mileage was 33,000. The VIN was unavailable.

33,000 miles NHTSA complaint 1214219 filed 2015-08-31

Also reported on the 2012 Chevrolet Equinox

Excessive oil consumption

152 reports median 93k

Other engine problem

140 reports median 80k

Wiper or washer failure

56 reports median 93k

Other visibility problem

52 reports median 97k

Other powertrain problem

44 reports median 71k

How far this goes

This page is kept out of search results because 4 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 4 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 fuel tank, filler or evap failure happen on the 2012 Chevrolet Equinox?

Across 2 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 25,000 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 fuel tank, filler or evap failure on the 2012 Chevrolet Equinox?

4 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