Cruise control failure on the 2004 Honda Accord
2 crashes 1 injury 3 of the 13 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 cruise control failure gets reported
Owners of the 2004 Honda Accord report cruise control failure at a median of 85,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 15,000 miles and a quarter after 125,000 miles, from 9 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 72,000 miles. It is the 24th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 10,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 125,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 113,418 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.
33% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12,322 miles | 15,390 miles | 86,000 miles | 125,000 miles | 125,740 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, 2 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 $200–$1,400 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 22 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2022, at a median of 2,000 miles, and latest on the 1997 at 180,000 miles.
By volume the 2018 carries the most reports, with 197; the 2004 has 13. 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.
As I was pulling out of my parking spot at the local kmart, in my 2004 honda accord ex, I noticed another car backing out also. I applied my brake and put my car from reverse into drive to pull a little ways back into my parking space so I would not get into an accident, when suddenly and without warning (the blink of an eye) my car crashed into another vehicle. In shock, I pressed harder on the brake, but my car continued to accelerate and I could not stop it. I hit two other parked cars before the brakes finally stopped the car. Thank god it stopped as my car was heading toward the kmart store. One 85-year old lady was injured while in her car. The other two cars were empty. A lot of damage to 3 vehicles plus almost $7,000 damage to my accord. After my car was repaired, I asked the honda dealership to look at my car and they could find nothing wrong. I asked to have the cruise control disconnected as I have read that may be what causes "sudden acceleration accidents" and honda refused saying if something went wrong they would be liable. This is a nightmare, just horrible, as I am being forced to drive my car and I am frightened…
As I was pulling out of my parking spot at the local kmart, in my 2004 honda accord ex, I noticed another car backing out also. I applied my brake and put my car from reverse into drive to pull a little ways back into my parking space so I would not get into an accident, when suddenly and without warning (the blink of an eye) my car crashed into another vehicle. In shock, I pressed harder on the brake, but my car continued to accelerate and I could not stop it. I hit two other parked cars before the brakes finally stopped the car. Thank god it stopped as my car was heading toward the kmart store. One 85-year old lady was injured while in her car. The other two cars were empty. A lot of damage to 3 vehicles plus almost $7,000 damage to my accord. After my car was repaired, I asked the honda dealership to look at my car and they could find nothing wrong. I asked to have the cruise control disconnected as I have read that may be what causes "sudden acceleration accidents" and honda refused saying if something went wrong they would be liable. This is a nightmare, just horrible, as I am being forced to drive my car and I am frightened…
2004 honda accord-ex (cloth); bought new at honda dealership. From the purchase date to present, problems with the following: *air conditioner/heater: water dripping from vents and window area; musty/moldy smell. *driver's seat: only one-way power is up; extremely uncomfortable. *stereo/entertainment: display goes on and off; cd's are burning hot when removed after playing for short time; whole area around system and panels are hot; sound is muffled from speakers. *front driver door: latch not functioning properly; doesn't stay open when it should and closes on person in driver seat when getting in/out car. *brakes: grinding. *trunk: after snow or rain and after brushing off snow from vehicle or after rain has stopped-- when trunk is open, water/snow gets into trunk (not designed well...needs better weather-stripping.) *jb
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 13 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 cruise control failure happen on the 2004 Honda Accord?
Across 9 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 85,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 15,000 miles and a quarter after 125,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is cruise control failure on the 2004 Honda Accord?
13 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.1 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