Other body or interior problem on the 2003 Honda Accord
3 crashes 2 fires 10 injuries 15 of the 102 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 other body or interior problem gets reported
Owners of the 2003 Honda Accord report other body or interior problem at a median of 50,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 5,000 miles and a quarter after 90,000 miles, from 69 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 88,000 miles. It is the 3rd most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 500 miles at the tenth percentile to 142,500 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 141,500 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.
39% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 500 miles | 5,076 miles | 49,090 miles | 90,000 miles | 142,000 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
Of these reports, 3 a crash, 2 a fire and 10 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 is the worst of them, which makes this a problem of this specific year rather than of the model as a whole.
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.
Driver side window and windshield are creaking when driving over left side bumps. Car taken to dealer who claims this is normal body flex which is incorrect. Research indicates that this is possibly due to a pillar clips or mohawk strip, however dealer inspected the a pillar and claims it is "tightened to spec". *nlm
Vehicle alignment problems. Vehicle has been at the original purchase dealer four different times, tires were rotated, and the vehicle was aligned. Vehicle was taken to a different dealer, and they stated that vehicle had serious problems with the frame. Manufacturer was contacted, and has told the consumer that he will need to meet with somebody from the manufacturer so the can recheck vehicle, but no solution has been found so far.*ak
There is a constant popping noise that developed around 2500 miles. The noise occurs once or twice upon acceleration from a dead stop and while braking to come to a dead stop. The noise appears to be coming from the firewall area under the drivers side floor pan. Other people with this problem have reported that this is a common issue with v6 accords and that the fix is to re-weld some areas between the firewall and floor pan. My dealer is not aware of any such fix and honda customer service has no idea as well. The popping noise appears to be caused to body flex in areas that were not welded properly.
Also reported on the 2003 Honda Accord
Other powertrain problem
Complete transmission failure
Other electrical problem
Other engine problem
Premature brake pad or rotor wear
Other brake problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 102 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 2003 Honda Accord?
Across 69 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 50,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 5,000 miles and a quarter after 90,000 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 2003 Honda Accord?
102 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