AtWhatMileage
Glass · 176 owner reports

Other visibility problem on the 2006 Hyundai Sonata

1 crash 1 of the 176 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.

Reports of this failure 176
With an odometer reading 160
Reports per 1,000 built 1.3 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 13%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 1
Typical repair $150–$1,400
What it means when it happens Moderate
Rank among this year's problems 2nd

When other visibility problem gets reported

Owners of the 2006 Hyundai Sonata report other visibility problem at a median of 64,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 50,000 miles and a quarter after 80,000 miles, from 160 reports that carried an odometer reading.

A part like this is normally expected to survive 75,000 miles. It is the 2nd most-reported problem on this model year.

The mileage distribution

The reported range runs from 30,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 98,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 68,156 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.

13% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 160 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
30,000 miles 50,000 miles 64,350 miles 80,003 miles 98,156 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 $150–$1,400 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 15 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2012, at a median of 300 miles, and latest on the 2018 at 125,000 miles.

By volume the 2006 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.

Median
  1. 1997 Hyundai Sonata other visibility problem 64k
  2. 1998 Hyundai Sonata other visibility problem 43k
  3. 1999 Hyundai Sonata other visibility problem 77k
  4. 2000 Hyundai Sonata other visibility problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  5. 2001 Hyundai Sonata other visibility problem 58k
  6. 2002 Hyundai Sonata other visibility problem 79k
  7. 2003 Hyundai Sonata other visibility problem 56
  8. 2004 Hyundai Sonata other visibility problem 115k
  9. 2005 Hyundai Sonata other visibility problem 4k
  10. 2006 (this one) 64k
  11. 2007 Hyundai Sonata other visibility problem 60k
  12. 2008 Hyundai Sonata other visibility problem 57k
  13. 2009 Hyundai Sonata other visibility problem 54k
  14. 2010 Hyundai Sonata other visibility problem 71
  15. 2011 Hyundai Sonata other visibility problem 28k
  16. 2012 Hyundai Sonata other visibility problem 290
  17. 2013 Hyundai Sonata other visibility problem 6k
  18. 2014 Hyundai Sonata other visibility problem 26k
  19. 2015 Hyundai Sonata other visibility problem 44k
  20. 2016 Hyundai Sonata other visibility problem 44k
  21. 2017 Hyundai Sonata other visibility problem 25k
  22. 2018 Hyundai Sonata other visibility problem 125k
  23. 2020 Hyundai Sonata other visibility problem 1k
  24. 2021 Hyundai Sonata other visibility problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  25. 2022 Hyundai Sonata other visibility problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  26. 2023 Hyundai Sonata other visibility 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.

The cars electric windows do not roll down during damp weather below freezing. With heater on high and 25 min. Later worked after door was closed. This happen twice, no ice or frost on any window. Seemed to be internal. If this was the last escape route remanding, I would be trapped in the car.*jb

20 miles NHTSA complaint 564291 filed 2005-11-30

Driver side sun visor makes racheting noise when driver adjusts... Then breaks and no longer moves up or down or stays in upward position. Rather,visor flops down and hangs in driver's line of vision and driver hits head on it upon entering/exiting vehicle . *tr

23,500 miles NHTSA complaint 689284 filed 2008-09-22

The sun visors in my vehicle have broken several times since purchasing. The dealer has admitted that this is a factory defect but they continue to install these defective visors. When the visor breaks, it hangs directly in the drivers line of sight.

63,000 miles NHTSA complaint 712791 filed 2009-03-19

Also reported on the 2006 Hyundai Sonata

Seat belt or retractor failure

91 reports median 75k

Other body or interior problem

45 reports median 55k

Other brake problem

42 reports median 60k

Other electrical problem

39 reports median 90k

How far this goes

Complaints are voluntary, so 176 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 visibility problem happen on the 2006 Hyundai Sonata?

Across 160 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 64,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 50,000 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 other visibility problem on the 2006 Hyundai Sonata?

176 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 1.3 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