AtWhatMileage
Engine · 140 owner reports

Other engine problem on the 2008 Honda Accord

5 crashes 3 fires 2 injuries 10 of the 140 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.

Reports of this failure 140
With an odometer reading 107
Reports per 1,000 built 1.2 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 21%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 10
Typical repair $300–$4,000
What it means when it happens High
Rank among this year's problems 2nd

When other engine problem gets reported

Owners of the 2008 Honda Accord report other engine problem at a median of 80,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 45,000 miles and a quarter after 114,000 miles, from 107 reports that carried an odometer reading.

A part like this is normally expected to survive 95,000 miles. It is the 2nd most-reported problem on this model year.

The mileage distribution

The reported range runs from 27,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 163,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 135,780 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.

21% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 107 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
27,220 miles 45,000 miles 80,000 miles 114,000 miles 163,000 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, 5 a crash, 3 a fire and 2 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 $300–$4,000 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 30 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2024, at a median of 10,000 miles, and latest on the 1997 at 135,000 miles.

By volume the 2008 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.

What owners wrote

Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.

Tl*the contact owns a 2008 honda accord. While driving 30 MPH, the exhaust caps fell off the vehicle and were driven over. Both passenger side tires were destroyed. The vehicle was towed to a dealer and that stated that her six cylinder vehicle had a four cylinder bumper. The contact has been going back and forth with the dealer for several days and does not believe they intend to exchange the bumpers. The powertrain was unknown. The current and failure mileages were 1,800.

1,800 miles NHTSA complaint 654126 filed 2008-01-18

Tl*the contact owns a 2008 honda accord. While driving 20 MPH, the engine revved. The contact was able to drive the vehicle to his residence, but the engine "raced" the entire time. A few days later, the contact's wife started the vehicle and lightly tapped the accelerator pedal. The vehicle suddenly experienced unintended acceleration, causing the vehicle to crash straight into a home across the street. The brake pedal was depressed, but they failed to work properly. The vehicle had not been moved since the day of the first incident. The vehicle was towed to a dealer, but they did not explain what caused the failure or defect. The current and failure mileages were 1,600. Updated 07/15/08. *lj the dealer stated the computer did not show any defects and the brakes were not applied. Updated 07/15/08

1,600 miles NHTSA complaint 674676 filed 2008-06-19

Tl*the contact owns a 2008 honda accord. While driving 60 MPH, the contact experienced excessive vibration in the steering wheel. The vehicle has been taken to the dealer approximately three times and they switched and rotated the tires. The failure still persists. The current mileage is 6,000. Update 10/01/08 *cw the dealer informed the consumer that the vibration was caused my a motor mount location problem that honda was aware of and was working to correct it. Updated 10/03/08. *jb

125 miles NHTSA complaint 685799 filed 2008-08-29

Also reported on the 2008 Honda Accord

Other brake problem

425 reports median 22k

Airbag inflator rupture

137 reports median 108k

Premature brake pad or rotor wear

100 reports median 22k

Other lighting problem

77 reports median 500

Excessive oil consumption

72 reports median 73k

Other body or interior problem

66 reports median 43k

How far this goes

Complaints are voluntary, so 140 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 engine problem happen on the 2008 Honda Accord?

Across 107 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 80,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 45,000 miles and a quarter after 114,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.

How common is other engine problem on the 2008 Honda Accord?

140 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 1.2 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