AtWhatMileage
Airbag · 10 owner reports

Airbag failed to deploy in a crash on the 2007 Hyundai Sonata

9 crashes 4 injuries 13 of the 10 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 10
With an odometer reading 10
Reports per 1,000 built 0.1 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 10%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 13
Typical repair $1,000–$5,000
What it means when it happens Critical
Rank among this year's problems 16th

When airbag failed to deploy in a crash gets reported

Owners of the 2007 Hyundai Sonata report airbag failed to deploy in a crash at a median of 80,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 70,000 miles and a quarter after 95,000 miles, from 10 reports that carried an odometer reading.

A part like this is normally expected to survive 72,000 miles. It is the 16th most-reported problem on this model year.

The mileage distribution

The reported range runs from 40,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 105,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 65,556 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.

10% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 10 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
40,044 miles 72,000 miles 81,092 miles 96,281 miles 105,600 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, 9 a crash and 4 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 $1,000–$5,000 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 20 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2004, at a median of 15,000 miles, and latest on the 2014 at 130,000 miles.

By volume the 2013 carries the most reports, with 31; the 2007 has 10. 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. 1999 Hyundai Sonata airbag failed to deploy in a crash 123k
  2. 2000 Hyundai Sonata airbag failed to deploy in a crash 99k
  3. 2001 Hyundai Sonata airbag failed to deploy in a crash 63k
  4. 2002 Hyundai Sonata airbag failed to deploy in a crash 70k
  5. 2003 Hyundai Sonata airbag failed to deploy in a crash 38k
  6. 2004 Hyundai Sonata airbag failed to deploy in a crash 15k
  7. 2005 Hyundai Sonata airbag failed to deploy in a crash 60k
  8. 2006 Hyundai Sonata airbag failed to deploy in a crash 100k
  9. 2007 (this one) 81k
  10. 2008 Hyundai Sonata airbag failed to deploy in a crash 62k
  11. 2009 Hyundai Sonata airbag failed to deploy in a crash 37k
  12. 2010 Hyundai Sonata airbag failed to deploy in a crash 33k
  13. 2011 Hyundai Sonata airbag failed to deploy in a crash 87k
  14. 2012 Hyundai Sonata airbag failed to deploy in a crash 125k
  15. 2013 Hyundai Sonata airbag failed to deploy in a crash 59k
  16. 2014 Hyundai Sonata airbag failed to deploy in a crash 130k
  17. 2015 Hyundai Sonata airbag failed to deploy in a crash 52k
  18. 2016 Hyundai Sonata airbag failed to deploy in a crash 29k
  19. 2017 Hyundai Sonata airbag failed to deploy in a crash 30k
  20. 2018 Hyundai Sonata airbag failed to deploy in a crash 86k
  21. 2019 Hyundai Sonata airbag failed to deploy in a crash 27k
  22. 2021 Hyundai Sonata airbag failed to deploy in a crash
    no odometer readings given
    —
  23. 2025 Hyundai Sonata airbag failed to deploy in a crash 34k

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 involved in a front end collision which resulted in damage to my car of over ten thousand, the crash happened at a 50 mile an hour rate of speed and the air bags did not deploy. I am concerned that the car is not safe. The accident was a five car pile up on a major highway. Hyundai is saying there is no defect. *tr

43,500 miles NHTSA complaint 680472 filed 2008-07-28

Tl* the contact owns a 2007 hyundai sonata. The contact stated that the air bag warning light illuminated, indicating a defect in the air bag. The contact took the vehicle to the dealer, where the seat cushions and air bag harness were replaced. The failure continued. The vehicle was taken to the dealer approximately nine times. The contact expressed concerns over being involved in a crash in which the air bags did not deploy. The failure mileage was 8,942. Updated 04/25/12 *bf updated 6/15/2012 *js

8,942 miles NHTSA complaint 913190 filed 2012-04-05

I was driving home after work going south on I-65 and at 4:00 pm, approximately one quarter mile south of exit 179 prattville alabama a deer jumped out of the ditch and I hit the deer going at 70 MPH.I was in the right hand lane. The seat belt did not keep me from hitting the steering wheel and the air bag did not deploy fortunantly I only sustained bruising and pain that kept me out of work for 2 days.the car was atotal loss and I just finished paying for it on 1/17/2013. *tr

72,000 miles NHTSA complaint 961160 filed 2013-02-03

Also reported on the 2007 Hyundai Sonata

Other visibility problem

135 reports median 60k

Other brake problem

52 reports median 29k

Seat belt or retractor failure

51 reports median 100k

Other driver assistance problem

40 reports median 100k

Other body or interior problem

33 reports median 46k

How far this goes

Complaints are voluntary, so 10 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 failed to deploy in a crash happen on the 2007 Hyundai Sonata?

Across 10 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 80,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 70,000 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 airbag failed to deploy in a crash on the 2007 Hyundai Sonata?

10 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.1 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