Alternator or charging system failure on the 2011 Chrysler 300
1 crash 7 fires 1 injury 9 of the 74 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 alternator or charging system failure gets reported
Owners of the 2011 Chrysler 300 report alternator or charging system failure at a median of 55,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 40,000 miles and a quarter after 65,000 miles, from 58 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 98,000 miles. It is the 1st most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 35,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 80,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 45,520 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
Reports bunched into a band this tight usually mean the component has a life of its own: it goes at roughly the same mileage regardless of who owns it.
10% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 35,400 miles | 40,075 miles | 55,000 miles | 65,000 miles | 80,920 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, 1 a crash, 7 a fire 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 $450–$1,600 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 2010, at a median of 100 miles, and latest on the 2008 at 120,000 miles.
By volume the 2012 carries the most reports, with 173; the 2011 has 74. 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 2011 chrysler 300. The contact stated that while driving, the ABS and traction control warning lights illuminated on the instrument panel. The vehicle then began to decelerate independently. The vehicle was towed to the dealer for inspection where they stated that the alternator had seized and needed to be replaced. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was notified of the failure. The failure mileage was 40,000.
Alternator caught on fire while engine was stopped\car parked while driving on interstate, the battery indicator came on, indicating a problem with the charging system. I continued on to my destination about 3 miles. When I turned the car off, there was an obvious smell of something being "hot" and I raised the hood to see if I could see it. The alternator was obviously very hot, and slightly smoking. Assuming it was ok now that I had turned it off, I went inside the building to call the dealer. Luckily, I changed my mind about trying to drive the car any further and decided to have the car towed and went outside to wait for the tow truck. When I got back to the car, the alternator had actually caught on fire and was blazing, dropping some melted materials onto a underbody air dam and appeared to be spreading. I was able to extinguish the fire before any more damage occurred. It appears that the alternator is severely damaged and there is some wiring damage as well as some damage to the surrounding wiring harness. There is no doubt that this fire would have spread to the entire vehicle in just a few minutes, as it appeared to be…
Alternator caught on fire while engine was stopped\car parked while driving on interstate, the battery indicator came on, indicating a problem with the charging system. I continued on to my destination about 3 miles. When I turned the car off, there was an obvious smell of something being "hot" and I raised the hood to see if I could see it. The alternator was obviously very hot, and slightly smoking. Assuming it was ok now that I had turned it off, I went inside the building to call the dealer. Luckily, I changed my mind about trying to drive the car any further and decided to have the car towed and went outside to wait for the tow truck. When I got back to the car, the alternator had actually caught on fire and was blazing, dropping some melted materials onto a underbody air dam and appeared to be spreading. I was able to extinguish the fire before any more damage occurred. It appears that the alternator is severely damaged and there is some wiring damage as well as some damage to the surrounding wiring harness. There is no doubt that this fire would have spread to the entire vehicle in just a few minutes, as it appeared to be…
Also reported on the 2011 Chrysler 300
Other electrical problem
Airbag inflator rupture
No-start or intermittent start failure
ABS module or sensor failure
Other engine problem
Stalling while driving
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 74 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 alternator or charging system failure happen on the 2011 Chrysler 300?
Across 58 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 55,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 40,000 miles and a quarter after 65,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is alternator or charging system failure on the 2011 Chrysler 300?
74 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 1.1 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