Other electrical problem on the 2012 Honda Civic
1 fire 1 of the 37 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 other electrical problem gets reported
Owners of the 2012 Honda Civic report other electrical problem at a median of 45,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 25,000 miles and a quarter after 65,000 miles, from 22 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 85,000 miles. It is the 2nd most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 2,400 miles at the tenth percentile to 120,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 116,425 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.
36% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2,420 miles | 25,000 miles | 44,755 miles | 65,575 miles | 118,845 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 fire 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.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 28 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2021, at a median of 400 miles, and latest on the 1998 at 155,000 miles.
By volume the 2016 carries the most reports, with 61; the 2012 has 37. 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 filling up for gas, I turn my vehicle on and the instrument panel went crazy with warning lights and audio warnings. I shut the vehicle off, waited a few seconds, and then started the vehicle. This time the vsa and ABS warning lights remained on, along with the lcd screen showing a system failure on these two systems. The vehicle was towed to the dealership where it was diagnosed that the vsa modulator module was completely fried. This is very disturbing to me, as the vehicle only had 827 miles on it when the problem occurred, and the module fried while sitting at a gas station (the car was not moving). The dealer is fixing my car under warranty, but the mere fact that this happen on a vehicle with such low mileage and not moving is a concern - not to mention the price of this module (~ $900.00). *tr
The best way to describe the car is it acts like it is possessed. For further explanation, the car (when parked) will all of a sudden have all instrument panel lights flash like crazy. This happens when turning on the ignition and then if you take the key out of the ignition it will continue and eventually stop. Once it stops the battery is then dead. The car then needs to be jumped and will run fine for awhile until it happens again. Car is driven daily and this has only happened 4 times. As such, the dealer has never been able to find out the issue since when we take it in the car is fine. This has us very concerned with kids and ourselves, as this could occur at anytime, anywhere. This is the 2 door coupe that they should start selling with a set of free jumper cables as an accessory. *tr
While driving through heavy rainfall, all interior lighting went out, media player crackled and stopped playing. A few minutes after pulling over, the car returned to normal. There were no lightening conditions observed at the time of the event. *tr
Also reported on the 2012 Honda Civic
Other steering problem
Other body or interior problem
Airbag warning light or occupant sensor fault
Other speed control problem
Other powertrain problem
Other engine problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 37 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 electrical problem happen on the 2012 Honda Civic?
Across 22 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 45,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 25,000 miles and a quarter after 65,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is other electrical problem on the 2012 Honda Civic?
37 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.7 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