AtWhatMileage
Body · 2 owner reports

Rust or structural corrosion on the 2008 Honda Accord

Only 1 report 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.

Reports of this failure 2
With an odometer reading 1
Reports per 1,000 built 0.0 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 100%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 0
Typical repair $500–$6,000
What it means when it happens High
Rank among this year's problems 52nd

When rust or structural corrosion gets reported

There are 2 reports of rust or structural corrosion on the 2008 Honda Accord, 1 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.

A part like this is normally expected to survive 120,000 miles. It is the 52nd most-reported problem on this model year.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 1 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
— — 25,266 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

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 2008 has 0. 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.

What owners wrote

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

Whenever the vehicle is exposed to water, water leaks in through a sunroof drainage tube, entering the vehicle adjacent to the rear, passenger side airbag. Per honda, it was caused by a leaf entering the drain, and is something I risk happening anytime this sunroof is open, operating under "normal use." as confirmed by honda, because their sunroof cassette design allows for this, there is nothing I can do to mitigate the risk, and there is no way I can be aware that it has happened until the damage is done. Additionally, nowhere in any manual does it warn owners of this risk, the possible effects, and actions to take. Per honda, it may occur again, but all I can do is wait and see if it happens again, in which case they'll 'fix' it the same way, and at the owner's expense. The drains were disassembled and cleaned, and it was confirmed that no damage had yet occurred to the airbags, electrical, upholstery (mold), or metal (rust/corrosion). Honda is not able to provide any recommended maintenance actions (in addition to their standard recommendations, which do not address this issue), thus the problem is likely to continue to occur…

25,266 miles NHTSA complaint 761489 filed 2010-02-10

Also reported on the 2008 Honda Accord

Other brake problem

425 reports median 22k

Other engine problem

140 reports median 80k

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

How far this goes

This page is kept out of search results because 2 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 2 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 2008 Honda Accord?

Across 1 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 25,000 miles. A quarter were filed before — and a quarter after —. 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 2008 Honda Accord?

2 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