Paint peeling or clear coat failure on the 2002 Honda Accord
Only 6 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 paint peeling or clear coat failure gets reported
There are 7 reports of paint peeling or clear coat failure on the 2002 Honda Accord, 6 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 95,000 miles. It is the 27th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 125,000 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 $600–$6,000 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 15 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2019, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 2000 at 150,000 miles.
By volume the 2018 carries the most reports, with 18; the 2002 has 7. 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 have a 2002 honda accord v6. My tcs, check engine light and my d4 transmission light came on so I took it to the honda dealership and they said that there was a 'problem' with my transmission and that it would need to be replaced at a total cost of $4900. I did some research and found that this is a pervasive problem in this model - transmissions are failing around 100k, some earlier - but honda has not issued a recall or offered to replace transmissions to my knowledge. I never thought I would need to replace the transmission on my honda ever, but now I need to replace it way too soon. I previously had a bottom of the line 1994 honda civic dx with 140k miles and never had any issues so I decided to upgrade to their top of the line model. I bought a honda because I wanted it to last a long time, but now this cost along with a badly needed paint job due to the clear coat eroding (another pervasive problem in this model where again honda has not admitted fault) is more than the $6200 blue book value. *tr
The clear coat and paint is almost completely dissolved on the roof, trunk and hood of my nighthawk-colored honda. This started less than 3 years from the purchase of this car!! I was not aware of all of the other complaints at that time. I have always taken extremely good care of my car, inside and out. It currently only has approximately 45,000 miles on it, and the paint looks absolutely horrid. This is not normal oxidation, it's clearly a defect in the paint, just like all of the other complaints/pictures online of other hondas with the same defective paint issue. Help! *tr
The clear coat on my honda accord is peeling off the car. The car has been well maintained. The paint is now greatly affecting my resale value and seems to be a common problem with honda paint. *tr
Also reported on the 2002 Honda Accord
Other powertrain problem
Complete transmission failure
Airbag warning light or occupant sensor fault
Other body or interior problem
Other electrical problem
Seat belt or retractor failure
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 7 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 7 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 paint peeling or clear coat failure happen on the 2002 Honda Accord?
Across 6 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 125,000 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 paint peeling or clear coat failure on the 2002 Honda Accord?
7 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.1 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