Unclassified problem on the 2003 Honda Accord
55 crashes 2 fires 52 injuries 109 of the 208 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.
Only 129 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 unclassified problem gets reported
Owners of the 2003 Honda Accord report unclassified problem at a median of 87,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 36,000 miles and a quarter after 140,000 miles, from 129 reports that carried an odometer reading.
It is the 82nd most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 10,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 179,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 169,300 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.
24% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9,900 miles | 36,300 miles | 87,000 miles | 140,000 miles | 179,200 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, 55 a crash, 2 a fire and 52 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.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 27 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2020, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 2025 at 170,000 miles.
By volume the 2008 carries the most reports, with 231; the 2003 has 208. 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.
New 2003 honda accord ex, with only 900 miles on it, hit at between 40 and 45 miles per hour on passenger side door. Neither front or side airbags were deployed. Neck injuries were the result of my head hitting the driver side window. I also had a 2002 honda accord ex, hit on driver's side passenger door at 35 miles per hour while parked and no airbags deployed either. Luckily I was not in the car when the 2002 accord was hit. *jb
Faulty speedometer/odometer when purchased new 2003 honda accord v6. American honda would not help saying that since the pdi was done the part failed at the dealer site. The dealer, autopark honda in cary, nc would not replace the car after my delivery because it doesn't fall under lemon law, even though I pointed the problem out to them within 18 hours of driving car home. *nlm
In the month of february I bought a honda accord, everything was fine until the end of may when I noticed a clicking noise coming from the front of the car every time the car stops, I took it to the honda dealer where I bought it and after a few hours, I was told that the clicking of the car is characteristic of this car, I told them that it didn't have it when I bought, then I was given a print out where honda talks about the "clicking or ticking at idle" for this type of car, I have asked other person with the same type of car and he doesn't have this noise, I have taken it to another dealer under honda's customer service request and the dealer said that all cars have that noise, I know for a fact that none of my previous cars had that noise. Since this is not consider a defect or a problem by honda, they offered me a free oil change as a "good will". This car is costing me over $27,000, honda can call this noise anyway they want, but I did not buy a car to have some noise after only 4 months of having the car, they also admit is a problem in the bulletin when they say "characteristic problem", the honest thing from honda since…
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
This page is kept out of search results because 208 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 208 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 unclassified problem happen on the 2003 Honda Accord?
Across 129 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 87,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 36,000 miles and a quarter after 140,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is unclassified problem on the 2003 Honda Accord?
208 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.6 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