Airbag warning light or occupant sensor fault on the 2002 Hyundai Sonata
1 crash 1 injury 2 of the 9 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 6 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 airbag warning light or occupant sensor fault gets reported
There are 9 reports of airbag warning light or occupant sensor fault on the 2002 Hyundai Sonata, 6 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 85,000 miles. It is the 11th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 81,000 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 and 1 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–$1,600 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 16 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2001, at a median of 20,000 miles, and latest on the 2013 at 140,000 miles.
By volume the 2006 carries the most reports, with 321; the 2002 has 9. 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.
Subject:2002 hyundai sonata.I have two problems ones the airbag light the other is engine light on.these could lead to a serios injury accident, if airbags dont work or if I cant stop car because engine dies!I know someone else that has the same problems with hers.my warranty has expired,but they should be responsible to fix both problems!anyway my main problem is the engine light that stays on,the car dies whenever it wants.I think this is a common problem with these cars and they dont want to fix .please look into it for all sonata owners,this should be a recall fix!thank you!
Airbag light was coming on and remaining on at certain times. Car was brought into hyundai dealership in march 2007. We were informed that the airbag would not deploy in the event of an accident and was not covered since the warranty had expired. The vehicle had never been in an accident and the airbag had not ever deployed so it must have been defective from the beginning. The vehicle was brought into napleton hyundai in west palm beach, fl in september of 2006 with the same airbag light problem and we were told by the service tech. That it was normal for the light to come on and there was nothing wrong with the airbag. *tr
Air bag light stays on my 2002 hyundai sonata. This has been a problem on and off for the past four years. The car was checked out by hyundai dealers in staten island and new jersey four different times. Every time with a code b1738,high resistance driver side air bag,repairs were made by them but problem still came back. I made a complaint to hyundai customer relations,case #3292132 about the on going problem with the air bag system,their reply was this was caused by debris under the drivers side seat. They also said if I wasn't happy with their answer I could take them to small claims court. The person I was in contact with at hyundai was a misty 1800 633 5151 ext. 329 2132. On july 18 2007 hyundai of freehold charged me $211.86 to make repairs (poor connection under drivers side seat)codeb1378 at this time my car had 14,315 miles on it. Then on may 08 2008 at mileage of 18,895 I had to take it back for the same problem code b1378, at this time the dealer reset the SRS at no charge but would deduct the $211.86 they charged me towards the cost of a new wire harness if needed. Even though this car is six years old it has very low…
Also reported on the 2002 Hyundai Sonata
Control arm, ball joint or bushing failure
Other body or interior problem
Rust or structural corrosion
Fuel tank, filler or EVAP failure
Other suspension problem
Other wheel or tire problem
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 9 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 9 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 airbag warning light or occupant sensor fault happen on the 2002 Hyundai Sonata?
Across 6 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 80,000 miles. A quarter were filed before — and a quarter after —. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is airbag warning light or occupant sensor fault on the 2002 Hyundai Sonata?
9 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.2 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