Other speed control problem on the 2002 Kia Spectra
1 crash 1 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 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 speed control problem gets reported
There are 5 reports of other speed control problem on the 2002 Kia Spectra, 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 78,000 miles. It is the 9th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 50,000 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, 1 a crash 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 $250–$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.
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 6 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2004, at a median of 20,000 miles, and latest on the 2005 at 105,000 miles.
By volume the 2005 carries the most reports, with 9; the 2002 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.
I am the owner of a 2002 kia spectra VIN [xxx] in the last month I had 3 incidents of sudden severe acceleration associated with applying the brake. The first time, on dec 8th, as I was stopping for a traffic light, the RPM counter went to 7500, the car tried to lurch forward, and I held my foot on the brake to stop it. After a few seconds it returned to normal. My kia dealer advised me to have the car towed to the shop - they could not duplicate the problem. The second time on dec 31 in a mall parking area as I braked to turn into a parking slot - I just managed to avoid hitting one of the parked cars. The last time, on jan 5th in the toll lane of the nys thruway as I was stopping to pick up the ticket. This time again, a sudden very high accelerator with the car trying to jump forward and applying the brake to hold it. After I turned the engine off, and I started it again and again each time I restarted. I had to get out of the car and advise all the people behind me in the queue of my problem. After a few tries, I was able to start it again without revving up and I took it to the dealer very carefully. Four days later, hey…
Stopping to avoid cars cutting me off or braking for any reason. Occurs often. Brake & gas pedals too close. Thought it was a surge for along time, but realized both pedals were being pressed at the same time, even more so for people with a wider foot than mine. Noted by my mechanic and daughter also. Several near misses. Mechanic had no remedy for problem. It's a kia spectra, ls, 2002 problem. *cw
Tl*the contact owns a 2002 kia spectra. The contact stated that while stopped at a traffic light with her foot on the brake pedal, the vehicle suddenly lunged forward and accelerated, crashing into the rear of another vehicle. There were no injuries. No police report was filed. Neither the dealer nor the manufacturer was notified. The failure mileage was 79,637.
Also reported on the 2002 Kia Spectra
Airbag failed to deploy in a crash
Other powertrain problem
Other brake problem
Seat belt or retractor failure
Other engine 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 other speed control problem happen on the 2002 Kia Spectra?
Across 3 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 other speed control problem on the 2002 Kia Spectra?
5 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.3 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