AtWhatMileage
Electrical · 11 owner reports

Other electrical problem on the 2009 Dodge Challenger

1 crash 2 fires 1 injury 4 of the 11 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.

Reports of this failure 11
With an odometer reading 9
Reports per 1,000 built 0.2 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 22%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 4
Typical repair $250–$2,000
What it means when it happens Moderate
Rank among this year's problems 4th

When other electrical problem gets reported

Owners of the 2009 Dodge Challenger report other electrical problem at a median of 65,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 50,000 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 85,000 miles. It is the 4th most-reported problem on this model year.

The mileage distribution

The reported range runs from 1,400 miles at the tenth percentile to 135,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 134,200 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.

22% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 9 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
1,400 miles 51,000 miles 64,500 miles 89,000 miles 135,600 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, 2 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 $250–$2,000 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.

The same failure on other years

The same failure is reported on 11 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2020, at a median of 1,000 miles, and latest on the 2012 at 65,000 miles.

By volume the 2012 carries the most reports, with 74; the 2009 has 11. 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.

Tl*the contact owns a 2010 dodge challenger(na). While the vehicle was parked it caught fire. The fire department extinguished the flames. An investigator concluded that the fire was caused by an electrical failure. There were no injuries. The current and failure mileages were 1000.

1,000 miles NHTSA complaint 740616 filed 2009-10-21

In 2009 I purchased a dodge challenger srt 8. Since I have had the vehicle it has stalled many times. Every time it's when I slow down and make a left or right turn. While turning the vehicle stalls and you loose steering and brakes. Last incident was earlier this week, my wife slowed down to make a left turn into our subdivision and he vehicle stalled in the oncoming lane and she was almost struck. She had to put the vehicle in neutral and restart the vehicle to exit the roadway. I have called the dealership many times and they say there's nothing wrong with the vehicle. I looked online for a fix and there doesn't seem to be any, although there are a lot of dodge vehicle owners with this problem. *tr

1,500 miles NHTSA complaint 1074066 filed 2014-06-10

My 2009 dodge challenger r/t equipped with the automatic transmission started experiencing problems downshifting when approaching a stop. You wouldn't know until you press the gas to proceed down the road and barely move as the vehicle would be stuck in the highest gear. I would have to pull over, turn the vehicle off, and restart it to drive the vehicle. Luckily this didn't happen when trying to pull out into traffic as it would have a high tendency to create a collision. Transmission code for the input speed sensor and after researching it online, I found a mass number of complaints and repairs about this issue. It appears to be a mechanical defect that needs to be dealt with by fca and NHTSA due to the common occurrence is these vehicles. Replacing the input speed sensor which is part of an electronic module cost approximately $500 and corrected the problem.

64,500 miles NHTSA complaint 1286571 filed 2016-06-01

Also reported on the 2009 Dodge Challenger

Other engine problem

30 reports median 30k

Other powertrain problem

17 reports median 41k

Other speed control problem

7 reports median 54k

How far this goes

Complaints are voluntary, so 11 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 other electrical problem happen on the 2009 Dodge Challenger?

Across 9 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 65,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 50,000 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 other electrical problem on the 2009 Dodge Challenger?

11 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