Thermostat failure on the 2012 Dodge Avenger
When thermostat failure gets reported
Owners of the 2012 Dodge Avenger report thermostat failure at a median of 80,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 80,000 miles and a quarter after 90,000 miles, from 9 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 95,000 miles. It is the 14th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 80,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 110,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 30,600 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.
0% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 78,200 miles | 79,000 miles | 80,000 miles | 91,000 miles | 108,800 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–$900 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, every year of the Dodge Avenger
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.
Starting in fall of 2016 the vents only blow cold air out of passenger side and lukewarm air out of driver side. The windows do not defrost and fog up constantly during the winter time while I am driving. My vision is constantly impaired during cool and cold weather. My children have to bring layers of blankets to get to school without freezing. I have to drive with gloves on to keep my hands from going numb. I have had the thermostat replaced and the system flushed but yet the problem still goes on. I was told that the heater core would need to be replaced in order to fix the problem. This is an ongoing problem and not just a one time incident. I do not have an exact date for when it happened but instead every day the temperature was below 30 since I've bought the car in april of 2016.
Also reported on the 2012 Dodge Avenger
Heater core failure
Other visibility problem
Other electrical problem
Radiator or coolant leak
Airbag warning light or occupant sensor fault
Other engine problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 13 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 thermostat failure happen on the 2012 Dodge Avenger?
Across 9 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 80,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 80,000 miles and a quarter after 90,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is thermostat failure on the 2012 Dodge Avenger?
13 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