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Other · 47 owner reports

Unclassified problem on the 2018 Hyundai Elantra

3 crashes 3 injuries 1 death 7 of the 47 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 11 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 47
With an odometer reading 11
Reports per 1,000 built 0.9 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 64%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 7
Typical repair —
What it means when it happens Moderate
Rank among this year's problems 63rd

When unclassified problem gets reported

Owners of the 2018 Hyundai Elantra report unclassified problem at a median of 30,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 5,000 miles and a quarter after 80,000 miles, from 11 reports that carried an odometer reading.

It is the 63rd most-reported problem on this model year.

The mileage distribution

The reported range runs from 100 miles at the tenth percentile to 145,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 144,943 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.

64% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 11 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
57 miles 3,765 miles 29,800 miles 79,825 miles 145,000 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, 3 a crash, 3 an injury and 1 a fatality 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 2018 has 47. 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 unclassified problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  2. 1997 Hyundai Elantra unclassified problem 92k
  3. 1998 Hyundai Elantra unclassified problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  4. 1999 Hyundai Elantra unclassified problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  5. 2000 Hyundai Elantra unclassified problem 60k
  6. 2001 Hyundai Elantra unclassified problem 62k
  7. 2002 Hyundai Elantra unclassified problem 69k
  8. 2003 Hyundai Elantra unclassified problem 55k
  9. 2004 Hyundai Elantra unclassified problem 27k
  10. 2005 Hyundai Elantra unclassified problem 75k
  11. 2006 Hyundai Elantra unclassified problem 53k
  12. 2007 Hyundai Elantra unclassified problem 76k
  13. 2008 Hyundai Elantra unclassified problem 69k
  14. 2009 Hyundai Elantra unclassified problem 77k
  15. 2010 Hyundai Elantra unclassified problem 63k
  16. 2011 Hyundai Elantra unclassified problem 65k
  17. 2012 Hyundai Elantra unclassified problem 88k
  18. 2013 Hyundai Elantra unclassified problem 44k
  19. 2014 Hyundai Elantra unclassified problem 50k
  20. 2015 Hyundai Elantra unclassified problem 22k
  21. 2016 Hyundai Elantra unclassified problem 15k
  22. 2017 Hyundai Elantra unclassified problem 34k
  23. 2018 (this one) 30k
  24. 2019 Hyundai Elantra unclassified problem 99k
  25. 2020 Hyundai Elantra unclassified problem 3k
  26. 2021 Hyundai Elantra unclassified problem 506
  27. 2022 Hyundai Elantra unclassified problem 60k
  28. 2023 Hyundai Elantra unclassified problem 31k
  29. 2024 Hyundai Elantra unclassified problem 5k
  30. 2025 Hyundai Elantra unclassified problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  31. 2026 Hyundai Elantra unclassified 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.

These new cars do not have a manual release for the trunk anymore - making them extremely dangerous. The only way to open the trunk is by releasing the level on the very front driver's side or you must have the keys in your hand. So the car is parked and my son goes out with a friend to get a poster out of the trunk and shuts the door on his hand by accident. - or should I say the trunk came down on his hand and locked his hand inside! And now he can't open the trunk door - and neither can his friends because there is no manual release anymore! And they are all to young to know there is a release on the front driver's side. If I had not been close by - my son would have lost his little pinky finger. It was cut all the way down to the bone. When I called hyundai to let them know - the first and last response was, "ma'am, could you calm down before we continue?" I said "sure. I am going to calm right down and call the press." and I hung up and have already notified abc, nbc and the automotive news - this is so dangerous. How could anyone allow new cars to have no manual way to open the trunk anymore. This is not evolution of the…

1,200 miles NHTSA complaint 1453398 filed 2018-03-09

Also reported on the 2018 Hyundai Elantra

Other engine problem

72 reports median 52k

Other electrical problem

24 reports median 29k

Misfire or rough idle

19 reports median 15k

Other powertrain problem

16 reports median 41k

Other fuel system problem

11 reports median 7k

How far this goes

This page is kept out of search results because 47 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 47 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 2018 Hyundai Elantra?

Across 11 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 30,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 5,000 miles and a quarter after 80,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.

How common is unclassified problem on the 2018 Hyundai Elantra?

47 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.9 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