Stalling while driving on the 1998 Honda Accord
When stalling while driving gets reported
Owners of the 1998 Honda Accord report stalling while driving at a median of 145,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 135,000 miles and a quarter after 180,000 miles, from 12 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 75,000 miles. It is the 19th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 80,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 275,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 193,466 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.
0% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 81,834 miles | 134,584 miles | 143,500 miles | 178,250 miles | 275,300 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 $300–$2,500 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.
This mode is classified as critical, which means a failure can leave the car unable to stop, steer, or stay out of the way of traffic. It is weighted accordingly in the risk score.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 12 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2018, at a median of 10,000 miles, and latest on the 2000 at 190,000 miles.
By volume the 1999 carries the most reports, with 47; the 1998 has 16. 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.
My 1998 honda accord has been having the same problem for the past three years. In hot weather, during the summer months, my car will either not start at all, start and then immediately shut off, or shut off while driving. This problem has continued to worsen over the past three years to the point I am afraid to drive my honda. I have taken it to numerous mechanics, including an authorized honda dealer, and no one has been able to fix this issue. The honda dealer replaced the battery and the starter, which has not fixed the problem. I do not have any of the old parts that were replaced. This problem occurs in hot or warm weather. It will happen a couple of times a week, and then won't again for a couple of weeks. I am fearful of the consequences enough that I am not driving my car because I have no way of knowing when or where my car will random shut off. My car has shut off while driving on a busy road, and men in other cars had to push my car across heavy traffic to get it off of the road. After a few minutes of rest, my car started again. I am also afraid of what would happen if my car shut off while driving on the interstate…
1998 honda accord kept shutting off while driving. The car stopped on a back road around a turn and completely stalled. Then when driving the car to a dealership it shut off while driving on interstate. *tr
1998 honda accord does not always start and stalls while driving. I called american honda and they claimed, based on my VIN number, that the recall issued for this problem does not apply to my particular car. It makes no sense that I have this problem if, as honda claims, this defect does not exist in my car. *tr
Also reported on the 1998 Honda Accord
Ignition switch, key fob or immobilizer failure
Other powertrain problem
Other electrical problem
Other engine problem
Complete transmission failure
Other body or interior problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 16 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 stalling while driving happen on the 1998 Honda Accord?
Across 12 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 145,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 135,000 miles and a quarter after 180,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is stalling while driving on the 1998 Honda Accord?
16 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