Other lighting problem on the 2004 Isuzu Ascender
Only 3 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 other lighting problem gets reported
There are 4 reports of other lighting problem on the 2004 Isuzu Ascender, 3 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 86,000 miles. It is the 6th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 170,000 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
Putting it right typically runs $120–$1,200 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 3 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2003, at a median of 50,000 miles, and latest on the 2004 at 170,000 miles.
By volume the 2003 carries the most reports, with 4; the 2004 has 4. 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.
While my wife was driving the vehicle both lowbeam headlights just went out. She was forced to drive with highbeams to get home. After replacing both lights and checking all fuses I am at a loss of what the problem is. We cannot drive this vehicle at night due to safety concerns. *tr
Vehicle headlights work very erratically both when vehicle is parked or in motion. Low-beam lights will go off on a moment's notice and only high-beam lights will work. More recently, even the high-bean lights have been acting up and turning off. Headlights sockets were replaced at some point but problem persists. This condition is extremely dangerous, especially when driving at night and all the headlights go out.
The low beams on my headlights will go out without warning while driving at night. My daytime running lights also will turn off without warning and turn back on but this is not as much of a safety issue as when it happens during nighttime driving. Sometimes my headlights will not work from the moment I start my car but most of the time they shut off during driving. I can switch the headlights to high beams and they typically work fine. Only once have I had both high and low beams out at the same time. When that happened I parked my car and let it sit. When I started my car after about 30 min to an hour both high and low beams were working again. My headlights will go out while I'm driving in the city, in the countryside, on the highway or on residential streets, after driving for a while or even when I first start my vehicle after it had been sitting for several hours. The reason for my headlights spontaneously going out is unknown. The part that causing the problem is unknown. It does, however, seem to be very similar to issues that has caused gm to do a recall on other gm vehicles which includes 2006-2009 (?) isuzu ascenders but…
Also reported on the 2004 Isuzu Ascender
Other electrical problem
Instrument cluster or gauge failure
Fuel tank, filler or EVAP failure
Headlight failure or clouding
Other fuel system problem
ABS module or sensor failure
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 4 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 4 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 lighting problem happen on the 2004 Isuzu Ascender?
Across 3 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 170,000 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 other lighting problem on the 2004 Isuzu Ascender?
4 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