Other electrical problem on the 2012 Dodge Challenger
1 fire 1 injury 2 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 other electrical problem gets reported
Owners of the 2012 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 85,000 miles, from 48 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 85,000 miles. It is the 1st most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 32,500 miles at the tenth percentile to 122,500 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 89,223 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.
13% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 32,100 miles | 50,000 miles | 65,062 miles | 85,000 miles | 121,323 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 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 is the worst of them, which makes this a problem of this specific year rather than of the model as a whole.
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.
Power windows on this car are designed to come down about an 1/8 to a 1/4 inch when you open the doors, and go back up when you close them. While car was parked the drivers window did not roll down all the way, then as I rolled the window up and exited the car the window did not do what it is designed to do, and is on the outside of the seal. The passenger window will keep going up and down as it was meant to except it will do it with the door closed and nobody opening the door. This is very distracting and could run the battery down and be a fire hazard. *tr
Window doesn't always automatically move down as it should when opening and closing the door requiring reprogramming (holding the "down" switch for 10 seconds after window is all the way down then holding the "up" switch for 10 seconds after window is closed). Window also sometimes goes down on it's own after door is closed and owner walks away from the vehicle. This is not only a major inconvenience, but can possibly lead to fire due to electrical issues when window randomly goes down allowing rain/water to enter the vehicle while unoccupied (not to mention security issues). *tr
Tl* the contact owns a 2012 dodge challenger. The contact stated that stated the driver's side power window independently opened and closed. As a result, the terminal battery failed and required charging every day. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was not made aware of the failure. The approximate failure mileage was 70,000.
Also reported on the 2012 Dodge Challenger
Alternator or charging system failure
Airbag inflator rupture
Other powertrain problem
No-start or intermittent start failure
Wiring harness or short circuit
Other engine problem
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 other electrical problem happen on the 2012 Dodge Challenger?
Across 48 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 85,000 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 2012 Dodge Challenger?
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