Loss of braking on the 2012 Hyundai Santa FE
1 crash 1 of the 8 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 loss of braking gets reported
Owners of the 2012 Hyundai Santa FE report loss of braking at a median of 15,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 15,000 miles and a quarter after 25,000 miles, from 8 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 78,000 miles. It is the 10th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 5,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 25,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 18,645 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
A window that narrow is the signature of a part that fails on its own schedule rather than on how the car is driven — which is usually a design or supplier problem rather than wear and tear.
100% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4,355 miles | 13,250 miles | 16,000 miles | 23,000 miles | 23,000 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, 1 a crash is 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 $400–$3,000 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.
This mode is classified as critical, which means a failure can leave the car unable to stop, steer, or stay out of the way of traffic. It is weighted accordingly in the risk score.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 8 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2012, at a median of 15,000 miles, and latest on the 2008 at 95,000 miles.
By volume the 2004 carries the most reports, with 12; the 2012 has 8. 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 stopped in a left turn lane and I believe I was the 8th or 9th vehicle in line. I had my foot on the brake pedal and the pedal went to the floor! I turned my steering wheel to the left as far as I could, but I tapped the bumper of the vehicle in front of me. There were no injuries and very minor damage to the rear bumper of the vehicle in front of me, and very minor damage to my front bumper. No other vehicles were involved. I called the hyundai dealership and told them that my brakes had failed and had caused an accident. I was told that it was probably not the brakes, but the master brake cylinder. I had the vehicle towed to the dealership (carl gregory hyundai, at northlake, columbus, ga) this morning I called to check on the status of the vehicle and was told that they had driven the vehicle for 200 miles and could not reproduce the problem. I had already told them that I was stopped in a turn lane when the brakes failed!! I was told that the hyundai representative told them to replace the master cylinder. *tr
Please investigate the hyundai line of cars. I was driving this car that I owned. I had just driven 140 miles, and I was on city streets making my way to the inlaws. I stopped at a stop sign and as I accelerated and proceeded to make a right turn on to another city street, the engine completely died. I noticed it when my power steering locked up, I had no brakes and I was headed right toward a home's front door. I was able to stop the car when it hit the curb dead on. I then put the car in to park and turned the car back on and it fired up right away. I really believe that hyundai has the same problem as gm. There was nothing wrong with the car after that and I could not duplicate the incident. I traded the car in a few days later because I refuse to drive it. If you google the problem, I was able to trace it back at least 11 years. How can you trust a car that where the engine will just turn off sporadically. Dealership claims "they've never heard of such a thing..." lies. The know about it, they just haven't done anything about it. I seriously think there needs to be an investigation in to this vehicle. I saw stories of peoples…
Please investigate the hyundai line of cars. I was driving this car that I owned. I had just driven 140 miles, and I was on city streets making my way to the inlaws. I stopped at a stop sign and as I accelerated and proceeded to make a right turn on to another city street, the engine completely died. I noticed it when my power steering locked up, I had no brakes and I was headed right toward a home's front door. I was able to stop the car when it hit the curb dead on. I then put the car in to park and turned the car back on and it fired up right away. I really believe that hyundai has the same problem as gm. There was nothing wrong with the car after that and I could not duplicate the incident. I traded the car in a few days later because I refuse to drive it. If you google the problem, I was able to trace it back at least 11 years. How can you trust a car that where the engine will just turn off sporadically. Dealership claims "they've never heard of such a thing..." lies. The know about it, they just haven't done anything about it. I seriously think there needs to be an investigation in to this vehicle. I saw stories of peoples…
Also reported on the 2012 Hyundai Santa FE
Other engine problem
Stalling while driving
Other speed control problem
Other electrical problem
Other powertrain problem
Other brake problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 8 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 loss of braking happen on the 2012 Hyundai Santa FE?
Across 8 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 15,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 15,000 miles and a quarter after 25,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is loss of braking on the 2012 Hyundai Santa FE?
8 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