Unclassified problem on the 1998 Honda Accord
26 crashes 13 injuries 39 of the 82 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 19 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
Owners of the 1998 Honda Accord report unclassified problem at a median of 95,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 60,000 miles and a quarter after 130,000 miles, from 19 reports that carried an odometer reading.
It is the 75th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 45,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 170,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 128,129 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.
5% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 43,918 miles | 60,359 miles | 95,000 miles | 130,000 miles | 172,047 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, 26 a crash and 13 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 2025 at 170,000 miles.
By volume the 2008 carries the most reports, with 231; the 1998 has 82. 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.
I was in a multi-vehicle car accident on saturday, april 12, 2003 and my airbags did not deploy on my 1998 honda accord. I was going about 50 MPH and the front end of my car hit another car and then a different car slammed into the passenger side. Given the speed of the accident, the airbags should have deployed. *jb
The consumer complained about a horn problem. The horn worked intermittently. The consumer was told my a mechanic that the air bag may be the cause of the horn problem. *ak the consumer had to "hit" the steering wheel to get the horn to activate. *ph *nm
This is my mothers car (1998 honda accord ex-vl) which was totaled in an accident due to a sudden unintended acceleration.my wife was the first owner of the vehicle and my mother has had the car for about 2 years. She had stopped, put the car into park, got out to open a parking lot gate, got back in, stepped on the brake, and shifted the car into gear. It immediately went into a high rev and accelerated uncontrollably resulting in the car smashing into a wall about 60' away. Luckily the air bags worked and neither her or my step father were seriously hurt. Her foot was definitely on the brake pedal as there is a lockout mechanism that prevents the car from being taken out of park if the brake pedal is not pushed. This may or may not be related, but she was having difficulty getting the handle to move. The problem with it not moving had occurred previously, usually on a slight incline, but the honda dealer looked at it and told her nothing was wrong. My mother is a retired bus driver with a perfect driving record, no accidents, and only uses one foot to control the vehicle.
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
This page is kept out of search results because 82 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 82 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 1998 Honda Accord?
Across 19 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 95,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 60,000 miles and a quarter after 130,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is unclassified problem on the 1998 Honda Accord?
82 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.9 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