Ignition switch, key fob or immobilizer failure on the 1998 Honda CR-V
When ignition switch, key fob or immobilizer failure gets reported
Owners of the 1998 Honda CR-V report ignition switch, key fob or immobilizer failure at a median of 125,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 95,000 miles and a quarter after 160,000 miles, from 9 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 80,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 180,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 99,938 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.
0% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 80,062 miles | 97,000 miles | 124,100 miles | 160,000 miles | 180,000 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
Putting it right typically runs $250–$1,500 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 2023, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 1999 at 175,000 miles.
By volume the 2007 carries the most reports, with 59; the 1998 has 22. 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.
While driving my 1998 honda cr-v I noticed power surges and deeming of lights. The car ultimately shut down. It started right back up and I drove it to a local mechanic. He looked it over hooked it up to his computer and got a reading that the solenoid on the transmission was going bad. He thought this was incorrect and suggested maybe something else was wrong. He drove the car for a while and nothing happened. He suggested I drive the car and let him know if something went wrong. Later that day as I was driving home from work solder dropped from under the dash onto my foot. Tuesday morning I had the car towed to the same mechanic that looked at it on friday. He was shocked that something under the dash could get that hot and not catch on fire. He looked under the dash and discovered that it was the ignition switch that had got so hot that it began to melt the solder. He called cale yarborough honda in florence to get a new ignition switch. We received the part and the mechanic put it in and the car seems to be running fine. The part that startles me the most is that the car belongs to my wife and I just happened to be driving it…
I am complaining about an ignition problem on a 98 honda crv. My car has 97,000 miles on it. I am filing this complaint because honda should have informed every owner that these switches were failing on almost all of their vehicles. This causes your car to stall randomly in traffic. It is a hazard. We owners deserved to know that this ignition switch was failing on all their cars. I would have replaced it before it stalled permanently in downtown ironwood if I had been informed. It is not expensive to repair but the symptoms are a mystery to any mechanic who has not read about this problem. I was fortunate enough to find a web page posted by a kind soul who explained what was happening to all these hondas. Http://www.visualimpressions.ca/switch/ I hope you can kick honda in the pants and make them inform their owner and just as importantly their dealers. Can you believe, their dealers have not been informed. *tr
I am the owner of a 1998 honda cr-v, which I purchased new. The vehicle had no serious performance issues until september 2008. At this time my daughter, who was driving the vehicle, began to experience isolated occurrences during which the cr-v would stall while in motion. These incidents were at first infrequent. My daughter took the vehicle to a local garage. There, the mechanics replaced the battery, believing that to be the problem. However, these incidents persisted, resulting in the cr-v being taken to two different garages in the statesboro, georgia area. Mechanics had difficulty in diagnosing the trouble because of the irregularity of the quixotic events. During the week of december 8, 2008, the stalling of the vehicle became more persistent, prompting my daughter to return the vehicle to the local garage once again. Upon further research of the matter, the mechanics informed her that the problem was the cr-v's key lock ignition switch, and that the particular item fit the paramters of a honda recall item. My daughter scheduled an appointment for december 13, 2008 at the nearest honda dealer, savannah honda, which was two…
Also reported on the 1998 Honda CR-V
Other electrical problem
Other engine problem
Catalytic converter failure
Other wheel or tire problem
Airbag inflator rupture
Other steering problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 22 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 ignition switch, key fob or immobilizer failure happen on the 1998 Honda CR-V?
Across 9 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 125,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 95,000 miles and a quarter after 160,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is ignition switch, key fob or immobilizer failure on the 1998 Honda CR-V?
22 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