AtWhatMileage
Lighting · 1 owner report

Headlight failure or clouding on the 2001 Honda Accord

Only 1 report 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.

Reports of this failure 1
With an odometer reading 1
Reports per 1,000 built 0.0 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 0%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 0
Typical repair $150–$1,800
What it means when it happens Moderate
Rank among this year's problems 64th

When headlight failure or clouding gets reported

There are 1 report of headlight failure or clouding on the 2001 Honda Accord, 1 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.

A part like this is normally expected to survive 88,000 miles. It is the 64th most-reported problem on this model year.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 1 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
— — 50,000 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

Putting it right typically runs $150–$1,800 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 15 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2008, at a median of 33 miles, and latest on the 1999 at 140,000 miles.

By volume the 2016 carries the most reports, with 60; the 2001 has 0. 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.

Median
  1. 1998 Honda Accord headlight failure or clouding
    no odometer readings given
    —
  2. 1999 Honda Accord headlight failure or clouding 140k
  3. 2000 Honda Accord headlight failure or clouding
    no odometer readings given
    —
  4. 2001 (this one) 50k
  5. 2002 Honda Accord headlight failure or clouding 88k
  6. 2003 Honda Accord headlight failure or clouding 43k
  7. 2004 Honda Accord headlight failure or clouding 59k
  8. 2005 Honda Accord headlight failure or clouding 2k
  9. 2006 Honda Accord headlight failure or clouding 38k
  10. 2007 Honda Accord headlight failure or clouding 42k
  11. 2008 Honda Accord headlight failure or clouding 33
  12. 2009 Honda Accord headlight failure or clouding 100
  13. 2010 Honda Accord headlight failure or clouding
    no odometer readings given
    —
  14. 2012 Honda Accord headlight failure or clouding 20k
  15. 2013 Honda Accord headlight failure or clouding 2k
  16. 2014 Honda Accord headlight failure or clouding 51
  17. 2015 Honda Accord headlight failure or clouding 2k
  18. 2016 Honda Accord headlight failure or clouding 40k
  19. 2017 Honda Accord headlight failure or clouding 39k
  20. 2018 Honda Accord headlight failure or clouding 3k
  21. 2019 Honda Accord headlight failure or clouding
    no odometer readings given
    —
  22. 2020 Honda Accord headlight failure or clouding
    no odometer readings given
    —
  23. 2021 Honda Accord headlight failure or clouding
    no odometer readings given
    —
  24. 2022 Honda Accord headlight failure or clouding
    no odometer readings given
    —
  25. 2025 Honda Accord headlight failure or clouding
    no odometer readings given
    —

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.

Obviously, motor vehicle headlights are essential safety equipment. The headlight lenses in all cars become clouded over time regardless of maintence or brand of vehicle. This is a definite safety hazard as light from the headlights is greatly reduced. Replacement on my car is approx. $400 per lens. This is perfectly avoidable by using better materials. Auto manufacturers should be made to replace them at their cost, and use proper materials in all new cars manufactured. I am stunned that no regulating body has done their job in addressing and correcting this serious issue.

50,000 miles NHTSA complaint 1011406 filed 2013-09-21

Also reported on the 2001 Honda Accord

Other powertrain problem

121 reports median 83k

Control module (ECM/PCM/BCM) failure

68 reports median 59k

Complete transmission failure

57 reports median 89k

Other speed control problem

42 reports median 40k

Airbag failed to deploy in a crash

38 reports median 68k

How far this goes

This page is kept out of search results because 1 report 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 1 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 headlight failure or clouding happen on the 2001 Honda Accord?

Across 1 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 50,000 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 headlight failure or clouding on the 2001 Honda Accord?

1 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.0 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