AtWhatMileage
Body · 58 owner reports

Other body or interior problem on the 2002 Honda Accord

9 crashes 2 fires 12 injuries 23 of the 58 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.

Reports of this failure 58
With an odometer reading 35
Reports per 1,000 built 0.5 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 14%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 23
Typical repair $200–$2,000
What it means when it happens Moderate
Rank among this year's problems 4th

When other body or interior problem gets reported

Owners of the 2002 Honda Accord report other body or interior problem at a median of 85,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 52,500 miles and a quarter after 150,000 miles, from 35 reports that carried an odometer reading.

A part like this is normally expected to survive 88,000 miles. It is the 4th most-reported problem on this model year.

The mileage distribution

The reported range runs from 17,500 miles at the tenth percentile to 182,500 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 165,835 miles across the middle 80% of reports.

A spread this wide points at use rather than design. Towing, climate, service history and city mileage all move a failure like this, so the median is a weak guide to any individual car.

14% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 35 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
16,878 miles 52,000 miles 85,000 miles 151,000 miles 182,713 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, 9 a crash, 2 a fire and 12 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.

Putting it right typically runs $200–$2,000 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 29 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2012, at a median of 1,000 miles, and latest on the 1997 at 175,000 miles.

By volume the 2003 carries the most reports, with 102; the 2002 has 58. 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. 1996 Honda Accord other body or interior problem 125k
  2. 1997 Honda Accord other body or interior problem 174k
  3. 1998 Honda Accord other body or interior problem 107k
  4. 1999 Honda Accord other body or interior problem 115k
  5. 2000 Honda Accord other body or interior problem 108k
  6. 2001 Honda Accord other body or interior problem 85k
  7. 2002 (this one) 85k
  8. 2003 Honda Accord other body or interior problem 49k
  9. 2004 Honda Accord other body or interior problem 69k
  10. 2005 Honda Accord other body or interior problem 77k
  11. 2006 Honda Accord other body or interior problem 110k
  12. 2007 Honda Accord other body or interior problem 60k
  13. 2008 Honda Accord other body or interior problem 43k
  14. 2009 Honda Accord other body or interior problem 34k
  15. 2010 Honda Accord other body or interior problem 38k
  16. 2011 Honda Accord other body or interior problem 16k
  17. 2012 Honda Accord other body or interior problem 1k
  18. 2013 Honda Accord other body or interior problem 3k
  19. 2014 Honda Accord other body or interior problem 2k
  20. 2015 Honda Accord other body or interior problem 6k
  21. 2016 Honda Accord other body or interior problem 9k
  22. 2017 Honda Accord other body or interior problem 7k
  23. 2018 Honda Accord other body or interior problem 27k
  24. 2019 Honda Accord other body or interior problem 6k
  25. 2020 Honda Accord other body or interior problem 3k
  26. 2021 Honda Accord other body or interior problem 71k
  27. 2022 Honda Accord other body or interior problem 38k
  28. 2023 Honda Accord other body or interior problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  29. 2024 Honda Accord other body or interior problem 2k
  30. 2025 Honda Accord other body or interior problem 57k

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.

Driver's front seat moves and rattles when turning and braking. This is a serious problem and honda has been unable to resolve the issue. Both my dad and brother have the same problem with two different 2002 honda accords. Two different dealerships have not resolved the problem. *nlm

25,000 miles NHTSA complaint 398187 filed 2003-03-17

After the front passenger seat was pushed up for someone to get in to the back seat, the front seat faild to lock in its original position. The front seat slid back and forth on the track. *ak when the consumers husband stepped on the brakes, the consumers mother who was in the passengers seat, the seat had moved forward and did not lock when it was pushed back. This problem caused the cosnumers vehicle to rearend another. *sc *jb

3,000 miles NHTSA complaint 453277 filed 2004-02-04

While driving 60 MPH the luggage rack came unattached from the vehicle. This caused the driver to pull off the highway to retrieve the belongings. Consumer will contact the dealer about this issue. *ak there was no mechanical retention provided in the design of the doors. *sc

45,000 miles NHTSA complaint 463415 filed 2004-03-30

Also reported on the 2002 Honda Accord

Other powertrain problem

306 reports median 87k

Complete transmission failure

136 reports median 85k

Other electrical problem

42 reports median 100k

Seat belt or retractor failure

41 reports median 75k

How far this goes

Complaints are voluntary, so 58 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 other body or interior problem happen on the 2002 Honda Accord?

Across 35 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 85,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 52,500 miles and a quarter after 150,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.

How common is other body or interior problem on the 2002 Honda Accord?

58 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.5 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