Airbag warning light or occupant sensor fault on the 2002 Honda Civic
5 crashes 1 injury 6 of the 111 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 airbag warning light or occupant sensor fault gets reported
Owners of the 2002 Honda Civic report airbag warning light or occupant sensor fault at a median of 85,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 60,000 miles and a quarter after 120,000 miles, from 71 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 85,000 miles. It is the 1st most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 45,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 180,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 135,000 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
A spread this wide points at use rather than design. Towing, climate, service history and city mileage all move a failure like this, so the median is a weak guide to any individual car.
6% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 46,000 miles | 59,000 miles | 86,061 miles | 118,769 miles | 181,000 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, 5 a crash and 1 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.
Putting it right typically runs $300–$1,600 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 19 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2012, at a median of 15,000 miles, and latest on the 2000 at 150,000 miles.
By volume the 2001 carries the most reports, with 117; the 2002 has 111. 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 starting vehicle air bag light illuminated and stayed lit the remainder of the time that vehicle was operated. Consumer took vehicle to dealer five times, but problem was not resolved. Dealer told consumer if problem happened again they would unplug the air bags. *ak
Srs light stays on for no indentifiable reason. Took it to local honda dealer, and he charged for diagnostics, and said they could not determine why it was on. He thought that it was probably the SRS computer unit itself that was the cause. The safety implication is that the air bags will not work when the light is on. The SRS unit will be replaced, costing around $600 for parts and labor.*ak
My daughter drives a 2002 honda civic lx. Approximately 18 months ago, the SRS warning light came on and she took it to a honda dealer. The dealer determined that there was no failure, and turned off the warning light (<$100 charge). Today, the light came on again, and this time the dealer (a different dealer) indicated that the opds unit needed to be replaced at a cost of $300, which was not covered by the extended warranty on the car. I searched the web and found that this is a very common occurrance, and that the airbags are disabled when the SRS light is on. Also, in many cases, the replacement of the opds will only fix the problem for a few months, and then the cycle is repeated. Multiple related technical service bulletins have been developed. The apparent frequency of this failure and the potential consequences, since the air bags are disabled, warrant a NHTSA investigation and possible recall by honda. *nm
Also reported on the 2002 Honda Civic
Other powertrain problem
Complete transmission failure
Seat belt or retractor failure
Airbag failed to deploy in a crash
Other engine problem
Headlight failure or clouding
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 111 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 airbag warning light or occupant sensor fault happen on the 2002 Honda Civic?
Across 71 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 85,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 60,000 miles and a quarter after 120,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is airbag warning light or occupant sensor fault on the 2002 Honda Civic?
111 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.6 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