Airbag failed to deploy in a crash on the 2004 Honda Accord
19 crashes 12 injuries 31 of the 21 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 airbag failed to deploy in a crash gets reported
Owners of the 2004 Honda Accord report airbag failed to deploy in a crash at a median of 95,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 80,000 miles and a quarter after 110,000 miles, from 13 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 72,000 miles. It is the 15th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 80,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 130,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 50,111 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.
8% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 79,340 miles | 80,702 miles | 97,264 miles | 110,000 miles | 129,451 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, 19 a crash and 12 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 $1,000–$5,000 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.
This mode is classified as critical, which means a failure can leave the car unable to stop, steer, or stay out of the way of traffic. It is weighted accordingly in the risk score.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 21 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2012, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 1998 at 180,000 miles.
By volume the 2001 carries the most reports, with 38; the 2004 has 21. 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.
Dt: the contact owns a 2004 honda accord. The consumer was involved in a car accident on 10-11-05. The consumer was sitting still and an another vehicle hit consumer's vehicle in the rear while going 45 MPH and pushed it into the car in front. It was a four car accident. There was more damage done to the rear than to the front of the vehicle. The contact was not immediately injured. Her knee did hit the steering column, but she was not initially injured by this. The contact was alone in the car. Upon impact, the driver's air bag did not deploy. The contact has not yet spoken to the dealer or the manufacturer, but planned to. Do so. The car was totaled. A police report was taken. The accident was reported to the insurance company.*ak updated 11/16/05. *jb
I was driving to work on 9/21/2010. Traffic was coming to a stop and I began to apply my brake. Upon applying brake my vehicle accelerated causing me to rear end another vehicle. My air bags did not deploy and I'm not sure what my rate of speed was because I was trying to stop when the car accelerated. My front end is damaged to the tune of $4,886.08. After my accident I was confused about how it happened. I knew I had was paying attention on just didn't ram into another car. I was on a street was several school bus stops and they where making their rounds. So speeding is not an option. I was talking with my fiance and he stated that this has happened to him once while driving my car. He did not have an accident, and also thought it may or may not have been operator error it kind of shocked and confused him as well. I'm going to have my vehicle checked while being repaired. I just want this looked into this was really scary and could have ended up much worse. *tr
I was driving to work on 9/21/2010. Traffic was coming to a stop and I began to apply my brake. Upon applying brake my vehicle accelerated causing me to rear end another vehicle. My air bags did not deploy and I'm not sure what my rate of speed was because I was trying to stop when the car accelerated. My front end is damaged to the tune of $4,886.08. After my accident I was confused about how it happened. I knew I had was paying attention on just didn't ram into another car. I was on a street was several school bus stops and they where making their rounds. So speeding is not an option. I was talking with my fiance and he stated that this has happened to him once while driving my car. He did not have an accident, and also thought it may or may not have been operator error it kind of shocked and confused him as well. I'm going to have my vehicle checked while being repaired. I just want this looked into this was really scary and could have ended up much worse. *tr
Also reported on the 2004 Honda Accord
Other powertrain problem
Complete transmission failure
Other electrical problem
Airbag warning light or occupant sensor fault
Seat belt or retractor failure
Other steering problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 21 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 airbag failed to deploy in a crash happen on the 2004 Honda Accord?
Across 13 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 95,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 80,000 miles and a quarter after 110,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is airbag failed to deploy in a crash on the 2004 Honda Accord?
21 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.2 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