AtWhatMileage
Fuel · 13 owner reports

Other fuel system problem on the 2007 Kia Spectra

1 crash 1 fire 1 injury 3 of the 13 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.

Reports of this failure 13
With an odometer reading 8
Reports per 1,000 built 0.9 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 25%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 3
Typical repair $300–$2,200
What it means when it happens High
Rank among this year's problems 4th

When other fuel system problem gets reported

Owners of the 2007 Kia Spectra report other fuel system problem at a median of 55,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 35,000 miles and a quarter after 75,000 miles, from 8 reports that carried an odometer reading.

A part like this is normally expected to survive 90,000 miles. It is the 4th most-reported problem on this model year.

The mileage distribution

The reported range runs from 10,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 110,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 101,900 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.

25% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 8 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
9,400 miles 32,500 miles 57,300 miles 73,500 miles 111,300 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, 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 $300–$2,200 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 4 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2008, at a median of 40,000 miles, and latest on the 2009 at 85,000 miles.

By volume the 2007 is the worst of them, which makes this a problem of this specific year rather than of the model as a whole.

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.

Median
  1. 2001 Kia Spectra other fuel system problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  2. 2003 Kia Spectra other fuel system problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  3. 2004 Kia Spectra other fuel system problem 37k
  4. 2005 Kia Spectra other fuel system problem 96k
  5. 2006 Kia Spectra other fuel system problem 84k
  6. 2007 (this one) 57k
  7. 2008 Kia Spectra other fuel system problem 42k
  8. 2009 Kia Spectra other fuel system problem 86k

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 feb 25, 2009 my husband was driving the 2007 kia spectra smelled strong odor of gas pulled car over on side of road opened hood and the motor was on fire called 911. Car was a total loss*tr

40,000 miles NHTSA complaint 711396 filed 2009-03-09

I purchased a kia spectra and reported to the dealership southwest kia that my gas pedal was sticking. I re-injured my right hand. I took the car to the dealership for inspection. But the peddle kept sticking. I also purchased a insurance that will pay your car payments when you are unable to work due to a medical condition. I filed a claim and it did not pay my car payments. Next thing I went out and my car was gone. The dealership accused me of making a false complaint. This all happen in 2009 not long before you found gas peddle sticking. Can you help me ? *tr

10,000 miles NHTSA complaint 784626 filed 2010-04-30

My 2007 kia spectra stalls out every time I fill the tank. It stalls during high rate of speed and during normal low speed driving. My kia is out of warranty, and from what I have read on other sites it would be a waste of time to have it fixed. Also I had to replaced the stop light switch under the dash. The recall was with 5 kia models but not the spectra. *tr

65,000 miles NHTSA complaint 816688 filed 2010-09-26

Also reported on the 2007 Kia Spectra

Fuel tank, filler or EVAP failure

25 reports median 46k

Other body or interior problem

14 reports median 32k

Seat belt or retractor failure

10 reports median 135k

Airbag failed to deploy in a crash

8 reports median 112k

Other electrical problem

8 reports median 55k

How far this goes

Complaints are voluntary, so 13 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 fuel system problem happen on the 2007 Kia Spectra?

Across 8 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 55,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 35,000 miles and a quarter after 75,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.

How common is other fuel system problem on the 2007 Kia Spectra?

13 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.9 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