Unclassified problem on the 2005 Chevrolet Silverado
3 crashes 2 injuries 5 of the 15 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.
Only 14 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.
When unclassified problem gets reported
Owners of the 2005 Chevrolet Silverado report unclassified problem at a median of 45,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 15,000 miles and a quarter after 85,000 miles, from 14 reports that carried an odometer reading.
It is the 54th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 5,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 160,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 154,740 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.
50% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6,000 miles | 12,875 miles | 44,153 miles | 83,750 miles | 160,740 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 crash and 2 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.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 20 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2015, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 1996 at 195,000 miles.
By volume the 2000 carries the most reports, with 45; the 2005 has 15. 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.
I had an accident on tuesday sept. 20, 2005 driving my 2005 chevy pickup k2500 hd 4 wheel drive. I lost control and went off highway striking a city dumpster headon and moving the dumpster approximately 50-60 ft. By police report and than going back on highway and crossing all 4 lanes before the truck stopped. My truck was totaled but my airbag never deployed. I was unconscious and was airlifted to vanderbilt hospital in nashville tn. Why didn't my airbag deploy with a headon crash of this force? This seems to be a defect in the product. I received a 4 inch cut across the bottom of my chin that required several stitches and very sore from my head down my right leg. Still following up with doctors.... *nm
In july, my service air bags light came on intermittently in my truck. Everytime I took it to the dealer they couldn't reproduce the light. Not long after that started to happen, the truck started to "chime"(warning signal) and beep, also at intermittent intervals. After 5 trips to the dealer and 19 days later(in the shop) they might have fixed the problem. *jb
I was driving the vehicle at normal speeds and I have had this vehicle for about 6 months and never have had a problem with it. All the sudden I get a message that says "service air bag". I took the truck to the dealer and they diagnosed it and they said that the truck needs a new front drivers side impact sensor that went bad. This truck has never been in an accident and the airbags have never been deployed. They told me that if this repair does not get done, if I have an accident the airbags wouldn't deploy. *tr
Also reported on the 2005 Chevrolet Silverado
Instrument cluster or gauge failure
Other brake problem
Other electrical problem
Other powertrain problem
Loss of braking
ABS module or sensor failure
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 15 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 15 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 unclassified problem happen on the 2005 Chevrolet Silverado?
Across 14 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 45,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 15,000 miles and a quarter after 85,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is unclassified problem on the 2005 Chevrolet Silverado?
15 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.4 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