Other body or interior problem on the 1998 Jeep Wrangler
1 fire 1 injury 2 of the 16 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 other body or interior problem gets reported
There are 16 reports of other body or interior problem on the 1998 Jeep Wrangler, 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 88,000 miles. It is the 7th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 103,066 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 fire 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 $200–$2,000 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 27 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2020, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 2000 at 137,500 miles.
By volume the 2018 carries the most reports, with 100; the 1998 has 16. 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.
I am writing today to complain about my 1998 jeep wrangler. After my last service was performed, the mechanic illustrated to me that the frame on my jeep was severely rotting away on the drivers side. This is not an unknown concern for me since my employer has had the same concern repaired on one of his family members jeep. This is very disheartening to me since I have been a jeep owner for many years. I contacted chrysler customer service and according to the operator they are not familiar with this problem. I find this unbelievable, considering that I am not the only one with this concern and other vehicle manufactures have recalled their vehicles for similar frame rot problems. Ie toyota pickup trucks, ford windstar minivans, and I am sure there are others. I am having this jeep fixed but it is going to be a costly repair, and it is unfortunate that at this time I can't afford to purchase another vehicle. I have pictures of the affected areas on my frame that I can forward to you if you need to see these for your investigation. Thanks a very concerned jeep owner *tr
Was told by my mechanic frame is rusting from the inside out, and the frame will fail in the near future. I understand this is a on going problem with jeep wranglers of multiple years due to the fact there were never drain holes providing drainage for the water, also lack of any rust coating to the inside of frame. In penn. You can not sell a car with frame damage. I'm not sure what I'm going to do.I feel that jeep should help with the repair or replacement of the frame. *tr
Purchased a used 1998 jeep wrangler sport on december 27 2014. Had it in a shop for new tires when they told me the frame was rotted and it was unsafe to drive. The dealership I bought it from inspected it and sure enough, rotted frame and unsafe to drive. They agreed to pay 1700 dollars towards the cost of a frame swap and it cost me 1000 dollars more for a total of 2700 dollars. This seems to be a real issue with jeeps between the years of 97 to 04, I may be wrong on the exact years but there is a definite pattern of bad manufacturing practices/bad quality steel to be contributing to this frame rot. Is chrysler waiting for someone to get killed in order to address this issue? Big corporations and politics meet to screw the general public once again? Chrysler, take a lesson from toyota and fix these frames before someone gets killed going down the highway at 65 MPH and their frame breaks. My jeep was totally bone stock when this was discovered. I'm not trying to get a dollar back for what I paid, just trying to bring awareness to this as have many others. Jeepers lover their jeeps no doubt and are very loyal to the brand…
Also reported on the 1998 Jeep Wrangler
Airbag warning light or occupant sensor fault
Seat belt or retractor failure
Exhaust leak or fumes in the cabin
Instrument cluster or gauge failure
Other electrical problem
Other powertrain problem
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 16 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 16 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 body or interior problem happen on the 1998 Jeep Wrangler?
Across 6 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 105,000 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 body or interior problem on the 1998 Jeep Wrangler?
16 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 5.4 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