Other wheel or tire problem on the 2002 Kia Spectra
3 crashes 1 fire 3 injuries 7 of the 6 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 other wheel or tire problem gets reported
There are 6 reports of other wheel or tire problem on the 2002 Kia Spectra, 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 60,000 miles. It is the 7th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 59,000 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, 3 a crash, 1 a fire 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 $200–$1,500 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, every year of the Kia Spectra
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.
Car in front stopped short so also immediately applied brakes forcefully in vehicle. Wheels locked causing car to vereen across highway adn bounce off jersey barrier out of control and back across three lanes of traffic before hitting left side barrier and stopping. Car is a total wreck. Kia body person says accident caused wheel to lock not the other way around. Didn't think they would accept liability for causing accident and they didn't let me down on that score. Insurance company settled claim with deductible applied and ma automatically places blame to driver on one car accidents. The car malfunctioned and that's what caused the accident but I can't prove it.
The rear driver tire went flat while driving 60 MPH. The window was down and all of a sudden a tapping noise started to sound, when the car stopped because the steering wheel was feeling shaky, the tire had a rip in the side of it, the wires were showing, it looked like a cut but it had just happened while driving down the highway. It was scary to say the least. The tire has alot of tread left on it and I think the other matching set of tires may explode any day. Afraid to drive the car now with the tires being this way. *tr
Tl*the contact owns a 2002 kia spectra. The vehicle has starfire flite-line iv, size p185/65r14 (na) tires. While driving 25 MPH, the vehicle swerved back and forth. The dealer stated that the tire tread was worn. The dealer explained what caused the tires to continuously wear; however, the contact could not remember the information. The tires were replaced seven times with different tire brands and lines. The DOT number was unknown. The failure mileage was 12,000 and current mileage was 90,000.
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 6 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 6 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 wheel or tire problem happen on the 2002 Kia Spectra?
Across 4 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 60,000 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 wheel or tire problem on the 2002 Kia Spectra?
6 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.4 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