AtWhatMileage
Lighting · 23 owner reports

Other lighting problem on the 2004 Dodge Durango

1 crash 1 fire 2 of the 23 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 23
With an odometer reading 19
Reports per 1,000 built 0.2 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 11%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 2
Typical repair $120–$1,200
What it means when it happens Moderate
Rank among this year's problems 15th

When other lighting problem gets reported

Owners of the 2004 Dodge Durango report other lighting problem at a median of 60,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 55,000 miles and a quarter after 125,000 miles, from 19 reports that carried an odometer reading.

A part like this is normally expected to survive 86,000 miles. It is the 15th most-reported problem on this model year.

The mileage distribution

The reported range runs from 35,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 155,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 120,100 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.

11% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 19 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
34,300 miles 53,500 miles 61,000 miles 123,000 miles 154,400 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 and 1 a fire 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 $120–$1,200 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 20 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2018, at a median of 25,000 miles, and latest on the 1998 at 155,000 miles.

By volume the 2014 carries the most reports, with 121; the 2004 has 23. 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.

The fog lights, located in the bumper of the 2004 dodge durango is damaged when debris (rocks) from the road way are kicked up. The fog lights are made of glass but the headlights are covered in plastic. Little stones where kicked up by trucks which broke both fog lamps costing 140 dollars in repair for just driving down the roadway. I feel this is a defect in the construction of this vehicle because these lamps are made of glass which caused them to break and needed replacement. They should be covered with plastic to prevent this costly repair. *jb

3,500 miles NHTSA complaint 511520 filed 2004-12-12

Headlights and parking (marker) lights go off while driving. Tail lights do not go off. Fog lights, if switched on, stay on (fortunately!!!) very intermittent, dealer "cannot reproduce the problem", have had it in the shop 6-7 times since 9/28, cannot fix. Very hazardous situation while driving at night. So far, no accidents, just a matter of time.... *nm

61,000 miles NHTSA complaint 559895 filed 2005-10-24

04 dodge durango hot electrical smell under the dash. Heating and cooling control lights don't work and interior lights when don't work correctly, hatch door light stays on all the time, I had to pull the bulb out, drains battery. Cd player don't work properly. Recall campain id number 03v528000. When I contacted chysler the said that my VIN number was not on the recall list. *nm

59,000 miles NHTSA complaint 611234 filed 2007-01-28

Also reported on the 2004 Dodge Durango

Other engine problem

385 reports median 102k

Other electrical problem

128 reports median 61k

Complete engine failure or seizure

59 reports median 120k

Other powertrain problem

56 reports median 100k

Instrument cluster or gauge failure

41 reports median 61k

How far this goes

Complaints are voluntary, so 23 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 lighting problem happen on the 2004 Dodge Durango?

Across 19 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 60,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 55,000 miles and a quarter after 125,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.

How common is other lighting problem on the 2004 Dodge Durango?

23 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