Tail light, brake light or signal failure on the 2017 Dodge Durango
When tail light, brake light or signal failure gets reported
Owners of the 2017 Dodge Durango report tail light, brake light or signal failure at a median of 45,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 35,000 miles and a quarter after 65,000 miles, from 18 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 85,000 miles. It is the 3rd most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 10,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 70,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 59,233 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.
28% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11,518 miles | 36,855 miles | 43,500 miles | 63,000 miles | 70,751 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 $100–$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 on other years
The same failure is reported on 16 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 1998, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 2000 at 85,000 miles.
By volume the 2014 carries the most reports, with 104; the 2017 has 31. 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.
Bought the vehicle brand new has a little over 10,000 miles on it now, started noticing standing water in the racetrack (back gate) LED lights took it to the dealership to find out why water was getting in they informed me the brake light had a crack which I thought was a seam (where the 2 parts met) it is a straight line down, vehicle has never been in a accident or damaged, so the brake light cracked in its own. After a little research I found out this is very common and don't understand how this can be safe since water is getting into something electrical and causing LED brake lights to fail or burn out.
Also reported on the 2017 Dodge Durango
Other lighting problem
Other electrical problem
Other powertrain problem
Other body or interior problem
No-start or intermittent start failure
Other engine problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 31 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 tail light, brake light or signal failure happen on the 2017 Dodge Durango?
Across 18 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 45,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 35,000 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 tail light, brake light or signal failure on the 2017 Dodge Durango?
31 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.4 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