Unclassified problem on the 2003 GMC Sierra 1500
3 crashes 3 injuries 6 of the 4 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.
Only 3 reports for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.
When unclassified problem gets reported
There are 4 reports of unclassified problem on the 2003 GMC Sierra 1500, 3 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.
It is the 34th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 132,000 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, 3 a crash and 3 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.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 27 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2020, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 1999 at 165,000 miles.
By volume the 2008 carries the most reports, with 106; the 2003 has 4. 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.
Dear NHTSA, I was involved in a three car mva on 2 feb on I-95 southbound near mile marker 131.2. I was traveling in the slow lane during the evening traffic commute when my vehicle was struck from behind from an infinity SUV which collided and impacted with the rear of my vehicle and pushed my vehicle gmc 2003 sierra ext cab into a late model ford fusion. The impact and force from the SUV behind me caused rear and frontal damage to my vehicle and is est to cost over $8900.00 for repairs. My airbags did not deploy and after seeing the photos of my full size pick-up truck it seems that their must have been some sort of malfunction that the airbags did not deploy on impact. My whole front bumper is completely damaged and the frame holding the bumper in place appears to be bent. The rear bumper to is completely destroyed and pressed under the bed of the truck and their is extensive damage to the bed itself having been bent upward as if it looks like an upside down letter "v" and the right side of the bed also is flared outward where it absorbed the impact. The bed of the truck also impacted into the rightside of my cab and also left…
Tl* the contact owns a 2003 gmc sierra 1500. While driving 40 MPH, the contact's vehicle crashed into the passenger side of another vehicle. The air bags failed to deploy. The contact sustained injuries to the face, knee, and back that required medical attention. In addition, the passenger sustained hip and shoulder injuries that required medical attention. A police report was filed. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The failure mileage was 177,000.
Also reported on the 2003 GMC Sierra 1500
Instrument cluster or gauge failure
Loss of braking
Brake line, hose or caliper failure
Other brake problem
Rust or structural corrosion
ABS module or sensor failure
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 4 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.
Complaints are voluntary, so 4 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 unclassified problem happen on the 2003 GMC Sierra 1500?
Across 3 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 130,000 miles. A quarter were filed before — and a quarter after —. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is unclassified problem on the 2003 GMC Sierra 1500?
4 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 4.1 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