Cruise control failure on the 2018 Honda Accord
3 crashes 3 of the 197 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.
When cruise control failure gets reported
Owners of the 2018 Honda Accord report cruise control failure at a median of 12,500 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 5,000 miles and a quarter after 25,000 miles, from 83 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 72,000 miles. It is the 3rd most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 2,500 miles at the tenth percentile to 60,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 57,800 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
A window that narrow is the signature of a part that fails on its own schedule rather than on how the car is driven — which is usually a design or supplier problem rather than wear and tear.
82% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2,400 miles | 5,000 miles | 12,041 miles | 24,970 miles | 60,200 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, 3 a crash is 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 $200–$1,400 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 22 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2022, at a median of 2,000 miles, and latest on the 1997 at 180,000 miles.
By volume the 2018 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.
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.
Three times during the first 1500 miles the collision mitigation braking system has failed, disabling that feature and adaptive cruise control, displaying a large diagnostic on the electronic dashboard and telling me to see my dealer. In all cases I was driving in normal traffic on northern california freeways at cruising speed (twice on 101, once on 80). The first two failures occurred during daytime, the third at night. The weather in all cases was normal (no rain, snow, mud, ...) .when I visited the dealer after the first two occurrences (when the car is turned off and then back on the condition clears) the dealer found no diagnostic codes or other problems. Then the problem occurred a third time. The dealer and honda corporate say they have no idea how to fix it because of the absence of diagnostic codes.
Three times during the first 1500 miles the collision mitigation braking system has failed, disabling that feature and adaptive cruise control, displaying a large diagnostic on the electronic dashboard and telling me to see my dealer. In all cases I was driving in normal traffic on northern california freeways at cruising speed (twice on 101, once on 80). The first two failures occurred during daytime, the third at night. The weather in all cases was normal (no rain, snow, mud, ...) .when I visited the dealer after the first two occurrences (when the car is turned off and then back on the condition clears) the dealer found no diagnostic codes or other problems. Then the problem occurred a third time. The dealer and honda corporate say they have no idea how to fix it because of the absence of diagnostic codes.
At 670 miles, I was driving slowly around a corner when I heard a long beep followed by a "collision mitigation braking system problem. See your dealer" message. The adaptive cruise control also stopped working. I restarted the car and the error went away. About a week later at 813 miles, I was driving in a straight road at 55 MPH with the adaptive cruise control engaged when I heard a long beep, the adaptive cruise control disengaged, and I received the same error message as before. Restarting the vehicle clears the error and allows the adaptive cruise control to work again until the next time it occurs. Both times this has happened were on warm, sunny, clear days with dry roads and no obstructions in front of the radar or camera units. Yesterday, the cmbs failed to alert me to a four-wheeler that drove across the street in front of me and it seems less sensitive at detecting other vehicles now - even when there are no error messages or warning indicators present.
Also reported on the 2018 Honda Accord
Head gasket failure
Other driver assistance problem
Other fuel system problem
Other brake problem
Other electrical problem
Fuel pump failure
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 197 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 cruise control failure happen on the 2018 Honda Accord?
Across 83 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 12,500 miles. A quarter were filed before 5,000 miles and a quarter after 25,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is cruise control failure on the 2018 Honda Accord?
197 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 1.7 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