AtWhatMileage
Engine · 18 owner reports

Other engine problem on the 2001 Hyundai Elantra

1 crash 1 fire 1 injury 3 of the 18 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.

Only 5 reports for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.

Reports of this failure 18
With an odometer reading 5
Reports per 1,000 built 0.2 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 20%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 3
Typical repair $300–$4,000
What it means when it happens High
Rank among this year's problems 4th

When other engine problem gets reported

There are 18 reports of other engine problem on the 2001 Hyundai Elantra, 5 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.

A part like this is normally expected to survive 95,000 miles. It is the 4th most-reported problem on this model year.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 5 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
— — 73,000 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, 1 a crash, 1 a fire 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–$4,000 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 26 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2023, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 2007 at 120,000 miles.

By volume the 2017 carries the most reports, with 161; the 2001 has 18. 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 Hyundai Elantra other engine problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  2. 1997 Hyundai Elantra other engine problem 67k
  3. 1998 Hyundai Elantra other engine problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  4. 1999 Hyundai Elantra other engine problem 95k
  5. 2000 Hyundai Elantra other engine problem 31k
  6. 2001 (this one) 73k
  7. 2002 Hyundai Elantra other engine problem 35k
  8. 2003 Hyundai Elantra other engine problem 19k
  9. 2004 Hyundai Elantra other engine problem 79k
  10. 2005 Hyundai Elantra other engine problem 66k
  11. 2006 Hyundai Elantra other engine problem 75k
  12. 2007 Hyundai Elantra other engine problem 121k
  13. 2008 Hyundai Elantra other engine problem 32k
  14. 2009 Hyundai Elantra other engine problem 113k
  15. 2010 Hyundai Elantra other engine problem 51k
  16. 2011 Hyundai Elantra other engine problem 82k
  17. 2012 Hyundai Elantra other engine problem 74k
  18. 2013 Hyundai Elantra other engine problem 65k
  19. 2014 Hyundai Elantra other engine problem 86k
  20. 2015 Hyundai Elantra other engine problem 74k
  21. 2016 Hyundai Elantra other engine problem 78k
  22. 2017 Hyundai Elantra other engine problem 59k
  23. 2018 Hyundai Elantra other engine problem 52k
  24. 2019 Hyundai Elantra other engine problem 63k
  25. 2020 Hyundai Elantra other engine problem 13k
  26. 2021 Hyundai Elantra other engine problem 16k
  27. 2022 Hyundai Elantra other engine problem 17k
  28. 2023 Hyundai Elantra other engine problem 4k
  29. 2024 Hyundai Elantra other engine problem 43k
  30. 2025 Hyundai Elantra other engine problem
    no odometer readings given
    —

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.

It is back at earnhardts, for the elec. System again 4th time. It started in 3/02 and went out again last fri. 6/6/03 but they don't consider it a problem. Because I filed a lemon law on the previous accent and replaced it with the elantra 2001 and I filled out a survey saying they had bad customer service, the normal use of a rental while they fixed it for days was not granted. I am so upset I spent a day out in the az sun waiting for a tow of 205 miles to the next dealership and they tell me I have a bad record with them and don't deserve the courtesy of a rental car. This is my second hyndai and I have had nothing but trouble with it and the dealership. I have sent letters to the attorney general, three on my side, hyndai and earnhardts dealership. I want out of this car and don't feel safe in it any more. I was going down the salt river canyon (if you are not from az picture going down the twisting road to the grand canyon) without any power steering, brakes and trying to keep control of the car with kids in it. And they tell me I shouldn't be excited! 1 1/2 hrs in the sun waiting for the tow, the next dealership 200 mi away…

27,694 miles NHTSA complaint 470340 filed 2004-04-22

Tl*the contact owns a 2001 hyundai elantra. While driving approximately 30 MPH, the brake pedal extended to the floor when it was depressed. The brakes were pumped several times before the vehicle came to a complete stop. A small amount of smoke appeared underneath the hood. The air bag and engine warning lights illuminated intermittently on the instrument panel. In addition, the contact exerted more effort to turn the steering wheel as if there were no power steering. The vehicle was taken to an authorized dealer and they replaced the power steering hose. The vehicle has not been repaired. The failure mileage was 60,000 and current mileage was 98,000.

60,000 miles NHTSA complaint 688570 filed 2008-09-16

Tl* the contact owns a 2001 hyundai elantra with 73000 miles. The contact was driving about 10 MPH when he noticed the engine had started knocking. The vehicle was taken to the dealer and was told that the engine had failed. The contact also stated that he had to replace tire on the front passenger side several different times. Bl

73,000 miles NHTSA complaint 765518 filed 2010-02-22

Also reported on the 2001 Hyundai Elantra

How far this goes

This page is kept out of search results because 18 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.

Complaints are voluntary, so 18 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 engine problem happen on the 2001 Hyundai Elantra?

Across 5 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 75,000 miles. A quarter were filed before — and a quarter after —. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.

How common is other engine problem on the 2001 Hyundai Elantra?

18 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.2 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