Control arm, ball joint or bushing failure on the 2003 Hyundai Elantra
When control arm, ball joint or bushing failure gets reported
Owners of the 2003 Hyundai Elantra report control arm, ball joint or bushing failure at a median of 97,500 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 80,000 miles and a quarter after 130,000 miles, from 52 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 108,000 miles. It is the 1st most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 67,500 miles at the tenth percentile to 160,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 92,942 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 67,058 miles | 79,750 miles | 98,517 miles | 128,907 miles | 160,000 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 $400–$2,200 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 12 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2011, at a median of 40,000 miles, and latest on the 2005 at 140,000 miles.
By volume the 2002 carries the most reports, with 102; the 2003 has 66. 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.
I was driving downhill to a stop sign (from about 20mph), and pressed the brake pedal, at which point I heard an awful crunch noise, and the front right corner of my car jolted, shook, and sounded like something was grinding together. I got out of the car to look at the front right wheel, and saw that it was turned in towards the center of the car, and bent under the front of the car, about 1/4" away from the back of the wheel well, while my other front wheel was aimed straight ahead. I drove the car 100 feet to a safe place off the street, during which trip the steering wheel tried to spin wildly in various directions, and the crunching, jolting noises and motions continued. The car was not drivable, so I called a flatbed tow truck, who towed it to my mechanic.. When the mechanic was able to look at the vehicle, he determined that the control arm had completely snapped in half, as a result of rust corrosion from the inside out. Visual inspection of the control arm confirmed that the metal it is constructed out of was corroded down to a thickness of approximately 5 or 6 sheets of paper. Water kicked up from wet roads by the tires…
I was driving downhill to a stop sign (from about 20mph), and pressed the brake pedal, at which point I heard an awful crunch noise, and the front right corner of my car jolted, shook, and sounded like something was grinding together. I got out of the car to look at the front right wheel, and saw that it was turned in towards the center of the car, and bent under the front of the car, about 1/4" away from the back of the wheel well, while my other front wheel was aimed straight ahead. I drove the car 100 feet to a safe place off the street, during which trip the steering wheel tried to spin wildly in various directions, and the crunching, jolting noises and motions continued. The car was not drivable, so I called a flatbed tow truck, who towed it to my mechanic.. When the mechanic was able to look at the vehicle, he determined that the control arm had completely snapped in half, as a result of rust corrosion from the inside out. Visual inspection of the control arm confirmed that the metal it is constructed out of was corroded down to a thickness of approximately 5 or 6 sheets of paper. Water kicked up from wet roads by the tires…
Traveling on interstate about 50-60 MPH and applied brakes. During braking (not skidding) the right front control arm failed and right front tire turned out skidding the car to a stop. Managed to skid the car into the middle median and had it towed back to repair shop near home. Replaced broken control arm. Wheel hitting inside of fender also bent fender. This was on a 2003 hyundai elantra with 113,000 miles. Control arm was rusting out where it broke. *tr
Also reported on the 2003 Hyundai Elantra
Other body or interior problem
Loss of braking
Other brake problem
Airbag failed to deploy in a crash
Fuel tank, filler or EVAP failure
Other engine problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 66 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 control arm, ball joint or bushing failure happen on the 2003 Hyundai Elantra?
Across 52 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 97,500 miles. A quarter were filed before 80,000 miles and a quarter after 130,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is control arm, ball joint or bushing failure on the 2003 Hyundai Elantra?
66 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 1.1 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