Seat belt or retractor failure on the 2002 Honda Accord
10 crashes 1 fire 8 injuries 19 of the 41 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.
When seat belt or retractor failure gets reported
Owners of the 2002 Honda Accord report seat belt or retractor failure at a median of 75,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 55,000 miles and a quarter after 115,000 miles, from 20 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 82,000 miles. It is the 6th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 35,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 155,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 123,433 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.
20% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 33,718 miles | 55,330 miles | 74,965 miles | 117,464 miles | 157,151 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, 10 a crash, 1 a fire and 8 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–$900 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 24 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2020, at a median of 10 miles, and latest on the 2018 at 175,000 miles.
By volume the 2004 carries the most reports, with 45; the 2002 has 41. 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.
Subject: front seat breaks off in rear end collision on honda accord sedan. O whom it may concern, purchased a brand new 2002 honda accord lx sedan from bloomfield honda in bloomfield hills, michigan one year ago.*ak my wife was rear ended by a large ford truck while she was stopped to make a left turn onto a neighborhood street. I truck didnt even brake and drove the truck all the way up to the backseat. Luckily she was wearing a seat belt. Her driver seat, however, broke off its moorings at the floorboard giving her no support as she was flung backward in the crash. It was like the front seat was a rocking chair after the crash. No part of the front end was damage except the driver seat (only the rear end had been struck). The trunk and rear-end are destroyed. Are drivers seats supposed to come loose or break off in crashes??? Is this the honda way? We have owned hondas for years and this is a major quality breech and a danger. If my wife wasnt wearing that seat belt she might be dead. The manager of the dealership said this sometimes happened in the honda accord in rear end collisions...this is acceptable???? The…
Re. Three major factory defects of 2002 honda accord v6 ex I currently own four honda vehicles. Two of them are 2002 honda accord v6 ex models. Honda released 2002 honda accord ex without any thorough final inspections. The malfunctioning on my two hondas was all factory defects deeply related to passenger safety. Honda does not care for human life sincerely as advertised. Honda does not deserve to be one of the best vehicles in the states. Since I purchased brand new 2002 hondas, three serious mechanical and electrical defects have been found: seat belt sensor malfunctioning, timing related engine RPM surge, and powertrain breakdown. All three happened within 36,000 miles. First problem was a seat belt sensor problem. It was detected several months on both vehicles. And I asked a honda mechanic to fix it. He told me that it would go away if you drove more. However, this problem was not gone. And couple of years later, I strongly ask honda dealer to check and fix it. One was seat belt sensor problem and the other was the main seat belt controller. Second problem was a timing related engine surge. It happened on both hondas within…
Re. Three major factory defects of 2002 honda accord v6 ex I currently own four honda vehicles. Two of them are 2002 honda accord v6 ex models. Honda released 2002 honda accord ex without any thorough final inspections. The malfunctioning on my two hondas was all factory defects deeply related to passenger safety. Honda does not care for human life sincerely as advertised. Honda does not deserve to be one of the best vehicles in the states. Since I purchased brand new 2002 hondas, three serious mechanical and electrical defects have been found: seat belt sensor malfunctioning, timing related engine RPM surge, and powertrain breakdown. All three happened within 36,000 miles. First problem was a seat belt sensor problem. It was detected several months on both vehicles. And I asked a honda mechanic to fix it. He told me that it would go away if you drove more. However, this problem was not gone. And couple of years later, I strongly ask honda dealer to check and fix it. One was seat belt sensor problem and the other was the main seat belt controller. Second problem was a timing related engine surge. It happened on both hondas within…
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
Control arm, ball joint or bushing failure
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 41 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 seat belt or retractor failure happen on the 2002 Honda Accord?
Across 20 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 75,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 55,000 miles and a quarter after 115,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is seat belt or retractor failure on the 2002 Honda Accord?
41 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.3 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