Unclassified problem on the 2013 Honda Accord
14 crashes 3 fires 8 injuries 25 of the 102 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.
Only 52 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 unclassified problem gets reported
Owners of the 2013 Honda Accord report unclassified problem at a median of 62,500 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 32,500 miles and a quarter after 90,000 miles, from 52 reports that carried an odometer reading.
It is the 76th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 17,500 miles at the tenth percentile to 125,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 109,100 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.
29% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16,400 miles | 33,072 miles | 62,000 miles | 90,092 miles | 125,500 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, 14 a crash, 3 a fire and 8 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.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 27 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2020, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 2025 at 170,000 miles.
By volume the 2008 carries the most reports, with 231; the 2013 has 102. 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.
After hearing a noise coming from the steering wheel (such as a clicking noise or squeaking), turning it left and/or right, I took it to the honda dealership on 08/20/2013. The dealership removed the steering wheel and determined that the cable reel for the air bag was defective and needed to be replaced. The dealership did not return the vehicle to me for "safety" until the part was to be replaced (and the steering console had been disassembled). The dealer replaced the cable reel on the car. 2 months after the repair, I started hearing the same noise turning the steering wheel left/right. I took the car back to the dealer on 12/26/2013 with the same complaint. The dealer inspection determined that the cable reel needed to be replaced again (5,484 miles). The dealer indicated that they would not disassemble the steering console, they would order the replacement part and I would have to bring the vehicle in again for the replacement when the part arrives (this is the second repair in less than 6 months). I asked the dealership why this was a recurring issue? They indicated that the manufacturer provided them with the part and they…
During a snow storm in columbus, ohio, while I was in my house, my car windows automatically rolled down, covering the seats, seat belts and car seats with snow. Due to a feature of the car documented in the owners manual on pages 128-129, if the lock button is compressed twice within 10 seconds, and held down (e.g., in a briefcase or purse when something heavy lands on it), the windows will roll down. This works well enough to transmit from inside a house to a driveway. I thought the car was all locked up, but it was not. Googling "honda windows roll down" LED me to a litany of complaints about the same thing happening, in snow storms, rain storms, etc. Apparently the feature is for hot climates (texas, california--or ohio in the summer), but there is no way to turn it off. Given how damaging this can be to a car, it seems like it should be a feature one could turn off. The customer service rep told me she had a call from a woman the week before who had the same problem. It should be easier to keep a car interior protected from the elements. Honda indicated they have no plans to address this in the future. *tr
As a result of my car having to brake so hard and sudden to stop a possible accident the airbags exploded also braking the seat belts without there being an actual impact. The police arrived, both the sheriff an a local officer. They testified as there being no impact and that it was a factory mistake and said an accident report was useless also to call honda and state our problem. We did so and honda refused to pay for the damages. When the insurance got involved they said it was not a accident and refused to pay. I understand is difficult for honda to accept an error in one of their vehicles; but it also has to be understood that I shouldn't pay for an error that I didn't commit. I hope you guys can help. *tr
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 102 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 102 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 unclassified problem happen on the 2013 Honda Accord?
Across 52 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 62,500 miles. A quarter were filed before 32,500 miles and a quarter after 90,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is unclassified problem on the 2013 Honda Accord?
102 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.4 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