AtWhatMileage
Adas · 17 owner reports

Other speed control problem on the 2002 Honda Civic

6 crashes 6 of the 17 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.

Reports of this failure 17
With an odometer reading 9
Reports per 1,000 built 0.1 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 22%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 6
Typical repair $250–$2,000
What it means when it happens Critical
Rank among this year's problems 15th

When other speed control problem gets reported

Owners of the 2002 Honda Civic report other speed control problem at a median of 140,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 85,000 miles and a quarter after 145,000 miles, from 9 reports that carried an odometer reading.

A part like this is normally expected to survive 78,000 miles. It is the 15th most-reported problem on this model year.

The mileage distribution

The reported range runs from 10,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 175,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 164,890 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.

22% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 9 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
9,280 miles 87,000 miles 138,000 miles 146,000 miles 174,170 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, 6 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 $250–$2,000 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 25 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2021, at a median of 200 miles, and latest on the 2002 at 140,000 miles.

By volume the 1997 carries the most reports, with 34; the 2002 has 17. 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.

Median
  1. 1996 Honda Civic other speed control problem 127k
  2. 1997 Honda Civic other speed control problem 39k
  3. 1998 Honda Civic other speed control problem 44k
  4. 1999 Honda Civic other speed control problem 94k
  5. 2000 Honda Civic other speed control problem 51k
  6. 2001 Honda Civic other speed control problem 100k
  7. 2002 (this one) 138k
  8. 2003 Honda Civic other speed control problem 55k
  9. 2004 Honda Civic other speed control problem 53k
  10. 2005 Honda Civic other speed control problem 6k
  11. 2006 Honda Civic other speed control problem 11k
  12. 2007 Honda Civic other speed control problem 32k
  13. 2008 Honda Civic other speed control problem 29k
  14. 2009 Honda Civic other speed control problem 12k
  15. 2010 Honda Civic other speed control problem 50k
  16. 2011 Honda Civic other speed control problem 24k
  17. 2012 Honda Civic other speed control problem 8k
  18. 2013 Honda Civic other speed control problem 7k
  19. 2014 Honda Civic other speed control problem 3k
  20. 2015 Honda Civic other speed control problem 61k
  21. 2016 Honda Civic other speed control problem 1k
  22. 2017 Honda Civic other speed control problem 16k
  23. 2018 Honda Civic other speed control problem 25k
  24. 2019 Honda Civic other speed control problem 42k
  25. 2020 Honda Civic other speed control problem 5k
  26. 2021 Honda Civic other speed control problem 200
  27. 2022 Honda Civic other speed control problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  28. 2023 Honda Civic other speed control problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  29. 2025 Honda Civic other speed control problem 1k

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.

While depressing the brake pedal to decelerate vehicle accelerated to a high rate. Consumer shut off the vehicle, and restarted the engine. Dealership was notified, but did not resolve the problem. *ak dealer replaced throttle body and cable. *la

10,850 miles NHTSA complaint 459518 filed 2004-03-10

Tl*the contact owns a 2002 honda civic. The contact stated that she pulled into a parking space and when she put the vehicle in reverse it suddenly accelerated forward and hit a brick wall.the contact stated that she had not placed her foot on the accelerator pedal. The front bumper fell off due to the crash. The vehicle was taken to an authorized dealership for a diagnostic test but the dealer could not duplicate the failure. The current and failure mileages were approximately 146,000.

146,000 miles NHTSA complaint 779206 filed 2010-04-06

I was trying to slow in a school zone when, although my foot was on the brakes, my 2002 honda civic suddenly started accelerating. Even with continued pressure on the brake the acceleration continued. When I was able to stop the car I put it in park and the engine was revving. I turned off the car and when I restarted it was fine. It has not happened since. *tr

140,400 miles NHTSA complaint 826845 filed 2010-11-20

Also reported on the 2002 Honda Civic

Other powertrain problem

108 reports median 106k

Complete transmission failure

55 reports median 101k

Seat belt or retractor failure

39 reports median 64k

Airbag failed to deploy in a crash

38 reports median 108k

Other engine problem

28 reports median 67k

How far this goes

Complaints are voluntary, so 17 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 other speed control problem happen on the 2002 Honda Civic?

Across 9 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 140,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 85,000 miles and a quarter after 145,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.

How common is other speed control problem on the 2002 Honda Civic?

17 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