Unclassified problem on the 2006 Kia Spectra
13 crashes 1 fire 13 injuries 27 of the 23 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 21 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 unclassified problem gets reported
Owners of the 2006 Kia Spectra report unclassified problem at a median of 70,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 15,000 miles and a quarter after 90,000 miles, from 21 reports that carried an odometer reading.
It is the 29th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 15,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 130,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 115,010 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
A spread this wide points at use rather than design. Towing, climate, service history and city mileage all move a failure like this, so the median is a weak guide to any individual car.
29% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12,990 miles | 16,000 miles | 70,000 miles | 91,000 miles | 128,000 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, 13 a crash, 1 a fire and 13 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.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 9 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2004, at a median of 25,000 miles, and latest on the 2007 at 100,000 miles.
By volume the 2009 carries the most reports, with 41; the 2006 has 23. 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 the afternoon of the 25th day of may in the year 2006, my wife and myself were driving down I-5 sb to mamc for her hospital appt. We were then involved in a multi-car accident off next to the off ramp of exit 123. We tried to slow down in time before noticing the just wrecked vehicle in front of us and my ABS in my 2006 kia spectra sx did not engage, my tires then locked up and I skidded and slid into the stopped vehicle. We hit them doing approx. 35-45 MPH and smashed in the front of our car. At that time my airbags (both driver and passenger) did not deploy. There has been no corrective action from the time of the accident. *jb
Car was struck on driver side rear quarter panel which resulted in the vehicle being spun in front of the dump truck which made the first impact. Car was struck on several points of impacts including the driver side door, driver side rear door, and front quarter panel. The hardest impact being directly on the side door, with enough impact to completely push the door inside of the door frame of the vehicle. Emt's statement described this to me when they were describing they had to use the jaws of life to free my wife from the drivers seat. No air bags deployed during this entire crash. This vehicle is equipped with 8 air bags of which three are on side impact specific on each side. *nm
Tl*- while driving down the road in a 2006 kia spectra at 45 MPH the contact lost control of the vehicle stating that he heard a cracking sound at the rear end of the vehicle which causede it to fall down a 10 ft embankment. Upon impact, air bags never deployed. The vehicle sustained damage in both the front and the rear. The contact stated that there wasn't any prior warning. The failure and current mileage were 16000. The contact could provide copy of police report as well as pictures of vehicle. There was one injury.*ak
Also reported on the 2006 Kia Spectra
Airbag warning light or occupant sensor fault
Fuel tank, filler or EVAP failure
Other body or interior problem
Control module (ECM/PCM/BCM) failure
Airbag failed to deploy in a crash
Other engine problem
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 23 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 23 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 unclassified problem happen on the 2006 Kia Spectra?
Across 21 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 70,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 15,000 miles and a quarter after 90,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is unclassified problem on the 2006 Kia Spectra?
23 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 1.6 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