Headlight failure or clouding on the 2013 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 headlight failure or clouding gets reported
There are 7 reports of headlight failure or clouding on the 2013 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 88,000 miles. It is the 41st most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 2,153 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 $150–$1,800 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 15 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2008, at a median of 33 miles, and latest on the 1999 at 140,000 miles.
By volume the 2016 carries the most reports, with 60; the 2013 has 7. 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.
Tl* the contact owns a 2013 honda accord. The contact stated that the low beam headlights did not work properly. The contact had to use the high beams to see when driving at night. The contact also stated that the stability control activated without warning and engaged the braking system. The vehicle had not been diagnosed by the dealer or a mechanic. The VIN was not available. The failure and current mileages were 4,000. *tr
Tl* the contact owns a 2013 honda accord. The contact stated that the low beam headlights did not work properly. The contact had to use the high beams to see when driving at night. The contact also stated that the stability control activated without warning and engaged the braking system. The vehicle had not been diagnosed by the dealer or a mechanic. The VIN was not available. The failure and current mileages were 4,000. *tr
I was driving my brand new 2013 honda accord in the late afternoon as it started to get dark. This was the first time my wife and I had driven the car at night. I was startled to realize that it seemed that someone had put a blindfold over the top portion of our eyes. We could not see above a clearly defined line. Below the line; light, above the line; total darkness. I had to turn on the high beam lights to illuminate the road adequately ahead, even at low speed. Having to turn off the high beams when encountering on-coming cars was extremely unnerving. The low beam headlights do not illuminate enough to read normal street and information signs nor to see an object, person, or anything that might cross your path. If you turn these lights on in a dark garage you can clearly see this defined line. We called the dealer where we purchased our car and brought the car in after explaining the problem. The service intake manager paged me and told me they found no problem, that the lights were normal for this car. This seemed impossible to us. I asked to speak with a manager and the service director came out to speak with us. He told us…
Also reported on the 2013 Honda Accord
Other steering problem
Other electrical problem
No-start or intermittent start failure
Other engine problem
ABS module or sensor failure
Steering rack, gear or tie rod failure
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 7 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 7 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 headlight failure or clouding happen on the 2013 Honda Accord?
Across 6 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 2,200 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 headlight failure or clouding on the 2013 Honda Accord?
7 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