Airbag inflator rupture on the 2006 Honda Civic
1 crash 1 injury 2 of the 58 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 inflator rupture gets reported
Owners of the 2006 Honda Civic report airbag inflator rupture at a median of 125,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 75,000 miles and a quarter after 175,000 miles, from 9 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 80,000 miles. It is the 8th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 35,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 195,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 157,452 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.
11% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 36,800 miles | 75,000 miles | 126,000 miles | 177,000 miles | 194,252 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, 1 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 $0–$0 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 20 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2016, at a median of 2,000 miles, and latest on the 1999 at 220,000 miles.
By volume the 2008 carries the most reports, with 64; the 2006 has 58. 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.
Takata recall. Our 2006 honda civic has a problem with the airbags. The light indicating airbag failure lit up, so we took it to the dealer who said it needs to be replaced. The previous model years have been recalled, so we wonder why we have to pay for the replacement and why this model year was not recalled.
Hello! A very well-known issue with the 06-09 honda civic is a tendency for the engine blocks to crack. Frequenting online forums and websites, it seems a wide range of people are affected from less than 1,000 miles to up to 200,000 miles. That being said, it seems this car is a literal time bomb. There have been incidents of people driving on the highway only to rapidly lose power to all systems, including the brakes and power steering. Needless to say, this is a profound safety hazard, not only to the driver, but other drivers as well! That being said, honda admitted that the tendency for blocks to crack was due a faulty casting process. They had issues an initial 8 year warranty and increased that to 10 years. As of late, many current owners have still had their blocks cracked. Only this time, honda is refusing to fix their faulty product. As such, I wanted to bring attention to this issue and hope something can be done to alleviate this matter. A car's block under normal maintenance and use should never catastrophically fail, let alone risk people's lives! Even if a recall isn't enforced, at least hold honda accountable to…
Tl* takata recall. The contact owns a 2006 honda civic. The contact received NHTSA campaign number: 16v346000 (air bags) however, the parts to do the repair were unavailable. In addition, the contact stated the ocs warning light illuminated after the recall notice was received and while waiting for the part to become available. The contact stated that the manufacturer exceeded a reasonable amount of time for the recall repair. The manufacturer was notified of the issue. Vin tool confirms parts not available. Updated 10/19/16*lj the consumer stated the air bag was supposedly installed on september 14, 2016. However, the ocw light failed intermittently. Updated 10/24/16.*jb
Also reported on the 2006 Honda Civic
Other visibility problem
Other engine problem
Other suspension problem
Control arm, ball joint or bushing failure
Other body or interior problem
Overheating
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 58 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 inflator rupture happen on the 2006 Honda Civic?
Across 9 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 125,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 75,000 miles and a quarter after 175,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is airbag inflator rupture on the 2006 Honda Civic?
58 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