Airbag failed to deploy in a crash on the 2003 Kia Sorento
5 crashes 3 injuries 8 of the 5 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 4 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 airbag failed to deploy in a crash gets reported
There are 5 reports of airbag failed to deploy in a crash on the 2003 Kia Sorento, 4 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 72,000 miles. It is the 22nd most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 50,900 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, 5 a crash and 3 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 9 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2016, at a median of 45,000 miles, and latest on the 2011 at 135,000 miles.
By volume the 2011 carries the most reports, with 16; the 2003 has 5. 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.
On saturday, april 3, 2004, my 2003 kia sorrento was parked in the middle of my driveway while I moved the lawn. After returning my lawn mower to the garage, I got into the sorrento to move it back into the garage. After I started the vehicle and put it into drive, it accelerated rapidly, pulled me through the garage and through the back wall, which is solid brick. I went through my front yard, and the only reason I stopped was because the vehicle went over some boulders and down an incline, causing the back wheels to come off the ground. I also hit a tree in my front yard. The air bags did not deploy.*ak
On saturday, april 3, 2004, my 2003 kia sorrento was parked in the middle of my driveway while I moved the lawn. After returning my lawn mower to the garage, I got into the sorrento to move it back into the garage. After I started the vehicle and put it into drive, it accelerated rapidly, pulled me through the garage and through the back wall, which is solid brick. I went through my front yard, and the only reason I stopped was because the vehicle went over some boulders and down an incline, causing the back wheels to come off the ground. I also hit a tree in my front yard. The air bags did not deploy.*ak
My daughter was driving a 2003 kia sorrento and fell a sleep at the wheel after college exams. She drove into the rear of a tractor trailer tanker at approximately 40 MPH. None of the air bags deployed as a result of the accident. She had a concussion and a cracked sternum. State farm insurance declared the car a total loss due to a bent frame, engine mount failure and a totaled front end. After contacting kia, their response to the accident was that the angle the car hit the trailer, was such that none of the sensors was compromised , there for the air bags did not deploy. Basically is was not their problem with their equipment of the car. *tr
Also reported on the 2003 Kia Sorento
Other engine problem
Fuel tank, filler or EVAP failure
Other fuel system problem
Timing chain, belt or tensioner failure
Other steering problem
Other electrical problem
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 5 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 5 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 2003 Kia Sorento?
Across 4 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 50,000 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 airbag failed to deploy in a crash on the 2003 Kia Sorento?
5 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 1.7 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