Unclassified problem on the 2013 Hyundai Elantra
26 crashes 2 fires 18 injuries 46 of the 132 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 68 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 2013 Hyundai Elantra report unclassified problem at a median of 45,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 27,500 miles and a quarter after 85,000 miles, from 68 reports that carried an odometer reading.
It is the 81st most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 10,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 130,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 119,471 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.
35% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9,371 miles | 27,750 miles | 43,785 miles | 85,250 miles | 128,842 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, 26 a crash, 2 a fire and 18 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 is the worst of them, which makes this a problem of this specific year rather than of the model as a whole.
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.
The accident happened while I was driving on the freeway with light traffic traveling around 60 MPH. It first began when I felt an unbalance of the front right tire. The car suddenly veered to the right regardless of my efforts to maintain control. My car fishtailed for a moments and almost caused me to crash into another car. I had no control of the car when my car crashed into the wall that lined the right side of the freeway. After visually inspecting the wheel, it appeared that the front right rim was cut in a half vertically and all around. It was cut in a near-perfect straight line - similar to what a opened can looks like. The tire remained fully intact without any damage. The body shop mechanics told us that they have never seen the rim cut like that before and said the only explanation would be a defect in the rim. We have pictures and can provide them upon request. The body shop mechanics and insurance adjusters are all clueless to how and why this occurred. Please open an investigation to help us determine the cause. The total estimate of the costs have estimated to be around $14000. *tr
I purchased the car in march, it was my first time buying a new car. Within the first couple of days after buying the car I noticed a few rattling and clanking noises. I believed this to be the cars moving parts, and didn't think much of it at the time, especially since I was used to driving used cars that sounded worse. After a few weeks, I noticed that the noises where noticeably louder, along with a loud knocking noise when I turned the steering wheel. The dealership that I purchased the car from (universal hyundai in orlando) was booked up so I made an appointment at orlando hyundai. Shortly after bringing my car in, and having the service department look at the car, I was told that the car was sold to me defective, that "the left and right inner tire rods and lock nuts were loose, threads were damaged, and the lock nuts were left loose from the factory". The service manager explained to me that this could have easily caused an accident, and that "one tire would've went one way and the other tire would've went the other way, causing your car to come to a sudden halt". This might have caused a serious accident, and knowing that…
Was about 2 tenths of a mile from a stop sign. As I was beginning to make my approach, the car accelerated, lurched forward and sped across a four lane highway before I could react. The car was t-boned on the passengers side. The impact straightened my vehicles trajectory from 90 degrees to about 30 to 45 degrees. I then impacted a guardrail with a somewhat nearly head-on angle. After I went through the guardrail I then impacted a tree head-on which brought the vehicle to a stop. My passenger's side curtain air bags deployed but the front (dash) air bags did not. My passenger received a broken collar bone, fractured rib, scalp lacerations (stitches), a concussion and multiple bruises from head to toe. *tr
Also reported on the 2013 Hyundai Elantra
Other brake problem
Other steering problem
Other engine problem
Airbag warning light or occupant sensor fault
Other wheel or tire problem
Other suspension problem
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 132 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 132 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 2013 Hyundai Elantra?
Across 68 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 45,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 27,500 miles and a quarter after 85,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is unclassified problem on the 2013 Hyundai Elantra?
132 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