Loss of braking on the 2009 Honda Accord
Only 6 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 loss of braking gets reported
There are 8 reports of loss of braking on the 2009 Honda Accord, 6 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 78,000 miles. It is the 20th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 28,750 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 $400–$3,000 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 19 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2004, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 2016 at 225,000 miles.
By volume the 2008 carries the most reports, with 38; the 2009 has 8. 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.
My fiance' purchased a 2009 honda accord ex 4 door sedan. She complained about a month ago that she started hearing a high pitched squeal coming from the rear. She had about 19k miles on it so I was bewildered what it could be saying it can't be brakes so it must be a bearing problem. I took it to the dealer, where he reported I needed brakes. He said "honda admits they might have an engineering problem with the brakes with premature failure, but won't admit it." service rep stated that the pads especially in the rear are far too small to handle the weight of the car so they wear especially faster than other vehicles. He stated they did a modification by adding a steel sensor so the owner knows when they are getting low. He wouldn't admit that before the modification, there were no sensors on the brakes people would be metal to metal and not know it because of the extremely low miles of wear. Online reports put brake failures for this model starting from 2008 anywhere from 14k to 21k. See your own site here: http://www.lemonlawclaims.com/honda%20accord%20brake%20problem.htm question is: in acknowledgement of toyota's current…
Intermittent scraping sound from rear of 2009 accord lx-p <20,000 mi. Increased frequency over time. Took to the dealer where purchased who replaced both rear brake pads (old parts not available) and resurfaced both rear rotors for a cost of $250 - declaired not covered by warranty. Internet research and notification of a class action lawsuit for this rear brake failure indicates this is a common problem for specific honda and accura models. I contend that honda is aware of this problem since they have devised (but not delivered to dealers as yet) a replacement set of brake pads. Also this is indeed a safety problem since both rear brake pads were at zero pad life remaining and rotors were damaged per the dealer service techs. That means to me that my accord had only 1/2 the designed braking ability which was engineered for this car - making the car unsafe in any emergency braking situation. *tr
This is the second honda accord that I have bought that had premature brake failure. The first honda accord 1996 had to have new rear brakes and pads at around 20,000 miles. This 2009 honda accord had premature brake failure at 21,085. This is not acceptable!! The bill was 409.24 + tax. Absolutely ridiculous!!! *kb
Also reported on the 2009 Honda Accord
Other brake problem
Other engine problem
Excessive oil consumption
Airbag inflator rupture
Other body or interior problem
Premature brake pad or rotor wear
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 8 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 8 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 loss of braking happen on the 2009 Honda Accord?
Across 6 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 30,000 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 loss of braking on the 2009 Honda Accord?
8 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