Other brake problem on the 2011 Hyundai Santa FE
3 crashes 2 injuries 5 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.
When other brake problem gets reported
Owners of the 2011 Hyundai Santa FE report other brake problem at a median of 40,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 20,000 miles and a quarter after 95,000 miles, from 17 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 88,000 miles. It is the 3rd most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 10,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 140,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 132,080 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.
47% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8,500 miles | 21,800 miles | 40,000 miles | 97,000 miles | 140,580 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 and 2 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–$1,800 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 24 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2025, at a median of 300 miles, and latest on the 2004 at 110,000 miles.
By volume the 2017 carries the most reports, with 44; the 2011 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.
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.
On may 26th 2011 around 6:20 pm when I drove on a local down hill road which is about 400 yard long, at a speed about 20 MPH, my car lost brake and power steering. I supposed to stop at a stop sign and make a left turn. When I pressed my brake pedal, my car can't stop and the pedal was very heavy, and I can't turn the steering wheel either. My car kept going straight. I kept stepping on the brake pedal very hard and my car finally stopped in the middle of street gradually. When I looked, I noticed check engine light and oil light were on. I then turn off my car and rest a while. I then turned my car back on and found check engine light and oil light went off and everything seemed back to normal. Worth to note that it was hot that day about 90 degree and I ride on brake slightly for about 300 yard on that down hill road before this incident happened. I was able to drive slowly back home that day and brought my car to the closest hyundai dealer at 7:30 am the next morning. However the dealer was not able to reproduce the failure and found nothing. I then contacted hyundai and hyundai created a case number and suggested me go to the…
Driving slowly in traffic down a hill my steering wheel, gear shift and brakes locked up. Immediately my generator light came on my dashboard. I managed to pull over and somehow get the car in park. I turned the car off and realized through my manual my generator light was on. I opened the hood and couldn't see anything. When turning the car back on the light went off and everything was fine. That monday I took the car to my dealership where I bought it and they told me they checked everything. Put the car up to a computer, drove it around, test everything couldn't find anything. I haven't had a problem since but something had to occur for this to happen. I am please with my car otherwise. Just hope this never happens again. It couldn't be weather related because it was neither super warm or super cold it was approximately 50 degrees fahrenheit. Fortunately I was stuck in traffic otherwise if I was driving the speed limit this could have ended up very badly possibly even fatal. *tr
This has happened at last monthly since purchase in august 2011. When attempting to stop placement of accelerator and brake pedals causes my foot to press both pedals at same time. Yesterday when I attempted to stop at a "t" intersection the front end entered the intersection as another vehicle was approaching. Quick action by the other driver avoided a collision. My brother said he had same problem (foot on both pedals at same time) when test driving his wife's santa fe. *tr
Also reported on the 2011 Hyundai Santa FE
Other engine problem
Other speed control problem
Other powertrain problem
Other electrical problem
Other steering problem
Other suspension problem
How far this goes
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 brake problem happen on the 2011 Hyundai Santa FE?
Across 17 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 40,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 20,000 miles and a quarter after 95,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is other brake problem on the 2011 Hyundai Santa FE?
18 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.5 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