Unclassified problem on the 2009 Hyundai Elantra
6 crashes 8 injuries 14 of the 25 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 16 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.
When unclassified problem gets reported
Owners of the 2009 Hyundai Elantra report unclassified problem at a median of 75,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 60,000 miles and a quarter after 110,000 miles, from 16 reports that carried an odometer reading.
It is the 39th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 20,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 135,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 113,120 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.
19% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20,780 miles | 60,567 miles | 76,500 miles | 110,000 miles | 133,900 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, 6 a crash and 8 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.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 26 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2021, at a median of 500 miles, and latest on the 2019 at 100,000 miles.
By volume the 2013 carries the most reports, with 132; the 2009 has 25. 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 a new hyundai elantra and the front end of the vehicle started to veer back and forth. I was waiting for the ABS to do what it was designed to do , it then pulled sharply to the right over an embankment and rolled over twice. My head hit the roof twice my neck and back were twisted, my left arm and shoulder were twisted and knees hit the dash I believe. When the car came to a stop there was glass everywhere including all over me. This car was equipped with front and side airbags and side air bag curtains. None of these safety devices were activated. My granddaughter and great grandson would have been in this car twenty minutes later, my granddaughter would not have survived this accident. The passenger side window was completely gone, shattered inside the car. I have asked hyundai of america to retrieve this vehicle to find out why none of these devices activated. This car was a total loss. I had just purchased it on october 27, 2009. Two weeks before this accident I was attempting to enter traffic, I was completely stopped, my foot on the brake. The car started to slowly move into the oncoming traffic no matter how…
Tl* the contact owns a 2009 hyundai elantra. The contact stated while driving 50 MPH, the contact crashed against another vehicle. The vehicle was damaged and destroyed on the passenger side. The contact stated that none of the air bags deployed. The contact sustained injuries in the neck, back, and concussions in the waist. The contact now suffered from temporomandibular joint disorder and migraines as a result of the crash. The vehicle was inspected by the insurance company but the contact did not know the results. The failure was reported to hyundai. The approximate failure and current mileage was 29,560. ..updated 08-07-13 *bf
I drove my 2009 hyundai elantra gls (5 speed manual transmission) into my friend's driveway, came to a complete stop, after being stopped for apprixmatley 30 seconds I pulled the car out of gear, pulled up the hand brake, and turned off the car with the key. As I turned off the car/pulled out the key, the passanger and driver side airbags deployed while my passenger and I were sitting in the front seats. No severe injuries were sustained by my passenger or me. However, days later the loud explosion of the air bag deployment has left a ringing in our ears. It is important to understand that there was no front collision or abrupt stop that should have caused a deployment. The vehicle was at a stable zero speed. Also, I am the origional owner of the vehicle and the vehicle has never been involved in an accident or had the air bags deploy previously. The dealership has reported to me that the vehicle computer codes identified that the vehicle had a front collision, as well as a passenger air bag failure. The service rep agreed with me that there was clearly no impact and agreed with me that the front collision was some sort of false…
Also reported on the 2009 Hyundai Elantra
Other steering problem
Steering column or shaft failure
Airbag warning light or occupant sensor fault
Loss of power steering
Other speed control problem
Other electrical problem
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 25 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 25 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 unclassified problem happen on the 2009 Hyundai Elantra?
Across 16 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 75,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 60,000 miles and a quarter after 110,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is unclassified problem on the 2009 Hyundai Elantra?
25 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