Loss of braking on the 2004 Chevrolet Silverado 1500
9 crashes 1 injury 10 of the 107 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 loss of braking gets reported
Owners of the 2004 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 report loss of braking at a median of 89,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 65,000 miles and a quarter after 114,000 miles, from 104 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 78,000 miles. It is the 2nd most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 50,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 151,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 101,302 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.
7% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 49,739 miles | 64,812 miles | 89,100 miles | 113,815 miles | 151,041 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, 9 a crash and 1 an injury are 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–$3,000 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.
This mode is classified as critical, which means a failure can leave the car unable to stop, steer, or stay out of the way of traffic. It is weighted accordingly in the risk score.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 21 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2020, at a median of 1,500 miles, and latest on the 2000 at 112,500 miles.
By volume the 2003 carries the most reports, with 142; the 2004 has 107. 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.
Tl* the contact owns a chevrolet silverado 1500. While driving at a low speed in an attempt to stop the vehicle the brakes failed. The dealer informed the contact that they could not diagnose the brake failure unless the incident recurred.. The contact stated this failurewas a safety concern and could result in a crash. *ak
Brake failure 2004 chevy silverado 1500. Loud grinding noise in the right rear area of my pickup LED me to stop at the nearest repair location to diagnose problem. Inspection indicated brake pad on inner right rear wheel was worn down to metal and was grooving into the rotor. Advised to drive as little as possible and bring truck the next day for repairs. The next day I took it back and had to have a rotor replaced and all four rear brake pads, even though the other three pads still had 75% of the pads left on them. Technicians who worked on my vehicle recognized common problem seen in many 1500 chevy silverado's of this age/era. Technical bulletin from chevrolet (00-05-23-005b, dated may 27,2003) states problem with this model truck including year models 1999-2004. Solution to problem was to install mud flaps in front of rear tires to prevent road debris from being thrown up onto caliper assemblies and causing excessive wear to the right rear inner brake pad. We purchased this truck in december of 2003, well after this bulletin was published and they sold it to us with no mud flaps installed and no mention of the need for…
Brake failure occurred on my 2004, silverado, due to a ruptured brake line. Incident occured in driveway. The leak was a pin-hole type, which shot a stream of brake fluid when the brakes were activated. The truck has 48,000 miles and was purshased new. *tr
Also reported on the 2004 Chevrolet Silverado 1500
Instrument cluster or gauge failure
Other brake problem
Other electrical problem
Brake line, hose or caliper failure
Steering column or shaft failure
Steering rack, gear or tie rod failure
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 107 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 loss of braking happen on the 2004 Chevrolet Silverado 1500?
Across 104 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 89,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 65,000 miles and a quarter after 114,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is loss of braking on the 2004 Chevrolet Silverado 1500?
107 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 3.6 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