Rust or structural corrosion on the 2003 Honda Accord
1 crash 1 injury 2 of the 9 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 rust or structural corrosion gets reported
Owners of the 2003 Honda Accord report rust or structural corrosion at a median of 50,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 50,000 miles and a quarter after 65,000 miles, from 8 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 120,000 miles. It is the 39th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 40,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 90,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 48,375 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
Reports bunched into a band this tight usually mean the component has a life of its own: it goes at roughly the same mileage regardless of who owns it.
0% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 40,000 miles | 47,868 miles | 52,246 miles | 64,250 miles | 88,375 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, 1 a crash and 1 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 $500–$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 7 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2003, at a median of 50,000 miles, and latest on the 2001 at 305,000 miles.
By volume the 1999 carries the most reports, with 10; the 2003 has 9. 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 own a 2003 honda accord ex and just last week I was driving along the interstate in tampa when it began raining heavily. I turned on the windshield wipers but they did not work and I almost rear ended the car in front of me. I had to pull over and wait until it stopped raining and basically crawl home as water spray from the road still hampered my vision. I later learned that back on april 16, 2008 honda had issued a recall on the 2003 accord ex due to corrosion of the wiper motor. This statement made by honda was on all the news wires. When I called honda's hotline I was told that they basically recanted the statement and claimed that they have no knowledge of such a failure even though it was on the news wires 2 months earlier and the fact that I was now reporting another such incident. *tr
My 2003 honda accord exl started to rust through the left rear wheel well lip this past winter. The car has been meticulously maintained with the records to prove so. The car was damaged at the back edge of the left rear door and repaired at the body shop both joyce honda and grecco auto body are subsidiaries of the grecco auto group selling & repairing hondas. The honda factory rep. Said the rear quarter panel would have to be replaced but that the rust was due to the accident and subsequent repair and therefore honda was not responsible. The honda dealers body shop and state farm insur. Claims rep. Maintain that the rust was far behind the area that was repaired and was not due to the accident. Attached are photographs of the small dent by the door just above the body trim line and the rust at the very top of the wheel opening. In essence, the service manager of joyce honda and the factory rep (who would not give me a business card or name) said the rust is a result of the repair and not their responsibility. While grecco auto body and the auto inspector for state farm insurance said the rust is far to the rear of the repaired…
My 2003 honda accord exl started to rust through the left rear wheel well lip this past winter. The car has been meticulously maintained with the records to prove so. The car was damaged at the back edge of the left rear door and repaired at the body shop both joyce honda and grecco auto body are subsidiaries of the grecco auto group selling & repairing hondas. The honda factory rep. Said the rear quarter panel would have to be replaced but that the rust was due to the accident and subsequent repair and therefore honda was not responsible. The honda dealers body shop and state farm insur. Claims rep. Maintain that the rust was far behind the area that was repaired and was not due to the accident. Attached are photographs of the small dent by the door just above the body trim line and the rust at the very top of the wheel opening. In essence, the service manager of joyce honda and the factory rep (who would not give me a business card or name) said the rust is a result of the repair and not their responsibility. While grecco auto body and the auto inspector for state farm insurance said the rust is far to the rear of the repaired…
Also reported on the 2003 Honda Accord
Other powertrain problem
Complete transmission failure
Other body or interior problem
Other electrical problem
Other engine problem
Premature brake pad or rotor wear
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 9 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 rust or structural corrosion happen on the 2003 Honda Accord?
Across 8 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 50,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 50,000 miles and a quarter after 65,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is rust or structural corrosion on the 2003 Honda Accord?
9 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