AtWhatMileage
Engine · 27 owner reports

Other engine problem on the 2007 Hyundai Sonata

2 fires 2 of the 27 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 27
With an odometer reading 21
Reports per 1,000 built 0.2 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 14%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 2
Typical repair $300–$4,000
What it means when it happens High
Rank among this year's problems 7th

When other engine problem gets reported

Owners of the 2007 Hyundai Sonata report other engine problem at a median of 100,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 65,000 miles and a quarter after 115,000 miles, from 21 reports that carried an odometer reading.

A part like this is normally expected to survive 95,000 miles. It is the 7th most-reported problem on this model year.

The mileage distribution

The reported range runs from 35,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 160,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 125,000 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.

14% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 21 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
35,000 miles 66,000 miles 100,700 miles 116,000 miles 160,000 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, 2 a fire 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 $300–$4,000 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.

The same failure on other years

The same failure is reported on 26 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2023, at a median of 100 miles, and latest on the 2008 at 115,000 miles.

By volume the 2011 carries the most reports, with 596; the 2007 has 27. 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. 1996 Hyundai Sonata other engine problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  2. 1997 Hyundai Sonata other engine problem 57k
  3. 1998 Hyundai Sonata other engine problem 80k
  4. 1999 Hyundai Sonata other engine problem 89k
  5. 2000 Hyundai Sonata other engine problem 56k
  6. 2001 Hyundai Sonata other engine problem 63k
  7. 2002 Hyundai Sonata other engine problem 57k
  8. 2003 Hyundai Sonata other engine problem 18k
  9. 2004 Hyundai Sonata other engine problem 85k
  10. 2005 Hyundai Sonata other engine problem 74k
  11. 2006 Hyundai Sonata other engine problem 85k
  12. 2007 (this one) 101k
  13. 2008 Hyundai Sonata other engine problem 115k
  14. 2009 Hyundai Sonata other engine problem 101k
  15. 2010 Hyundai Sonata other engine problem 63k
  16. 2011 Hyundai Sonata other engine problem 95k
  17. 2012 Hyundai Sonata other engine problem 91k
  18. 2013 Hyundai Sonata other engine problem 97k
  19. 2014 Hyundai Sonata other engine problem 89k
  20. 2015 Hyundai Sonata other engine problem 65k
  21. 2016 Hyundai Sonata other engine problem 82k
  22. 2017 Hyundai Sonata other engine problem 69k
  23. 2018 Hyundai Sonata other engine problem 41k
  24. 2019 Hyundai Sonata other engine problem 43k
  25. 2020 Hyundai Sonata other engine problem 3k
  26. 2021 Hyundai Sonata other engine problem 6k
  27. 2022 Hyundai Sonata other engine problem 15k
  28. 2023 Hyundai Sonata other engine problem 80
  29. 2024 Hyundai Sonata other engine problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  30. 2025 Hyundai Sonata other engine problem 16k

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.

Tl*-the contact owns a 2007 hyundai sonata. The contact had his vehicle repaired according to recall# 08v161000 (air bags). After the repair he noticed that when an occupant sits in the right passenger seat, the front air bag does not detect the presence of an adult. The manufacturer was notified, and a representative concluded that they are unaware of how to remedy the failure. The failure and current mileages were 35,000. Updated 11/23/09 *bf the idler pulley bearing was replaced in the engine. Updated 11/24/09.*jb

35,000 miles NHTSA complaint 735009 filed 2009-09-10

2007 hyundai sonata 3.3l failure of the throttle sensor and computer programming caused the vehicle to stop accelerating. The engine malfunction light and esc off light came on. The vehicle was being operated at 65 MPH in very busy morning traffic when this occurred, putting the two occupants in a potentially extremely hazardous situation. The vehicle was on an inside lane behind a heavy truck and beside another heavy truck when the vehicle would not accelerate and went to idle. This occurred on I-84 in the boise, id corridor. The vehicle was towed to the local hyundai dealer via hyundai roadside assistance. There was no advance indication that the vehicle had any mechanical issues. This incident could have caused a potentially fatal accident.

41,323 miles NHTSA complaint 777113 filed 2010-03-26

2007 engine tap on 3.3 hyundai sonata when starting seems hyundai used a paper oil filter design rather than a spin off possibly engineers failed to include a oil check valve to stop the oil from draining outof the engine, engine taps for 5-10 seconds until oil gets up to motor. *tr

66,000 miles NHTSA complaint 818075 filed 2010-10-02

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 27 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 engine problem happen on the 2007 Hyundai Sonata?

Across 21 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 100,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 65,000 miles and a quarter after 115,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.

How common is other engine problem on the 2007 Hyundai Sonata?

27 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