Airbag failed to deploy in a crash on the 2003 Land Rover Discovery
3 crashes 2 injuries 5 of the 3 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 airbag failed to deploy in a crash gets reported
There are 3 reports of airbag failed to deploy in a crash on the 2003 Land Rover Discovery, 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 72,000 miles. It is the 9th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 72,000 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 and 2 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, every year of the Land Rover Discovery
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.
Since buying our land rover discovery in february 2004 we've experienced numerous recalls and problems with the car. Fortunately, it is still under the manufacturer's warranty. The problem of concern at this point in time is as follows: when braking, the land rover would occasionally lurch forward a little bit...almost jumping. On oct. 28, 2005 at approximately 2:45 pm I pulled out of my subdivision onto 180th st. In elkhorn, ne. I was heading south towards a stop light at the junction of 180th st. And pacific. There where numerous cars stopped at the light. I believe the light had turned green and cars were beginning to move, but I was still braking slowly starting to move forward as the cars in front of me began to move. I felt my land rover lurch forward and my body was immediately pressed back into my seat. At that point the land rover made impact with a piece of toro irrigation machinery being towed by the van in front of me and my body was thrown forward. I was wearing my seat belt. My airbag did not deploy. There was over $7700 worth of damage done to the front of the land rover. *jb
Tl* the contact owns a 2003 land rover discovery. While driving 2 MPH and making a right turn, the vehicle accelerated without warning. As a result, it crashed into a curb, drove over the sidewalk, and into the street. The brake pedal was applied and the vehicle stopped. The vehicle was towed to an independent mechanic. The vehicle was towed to a local dealer (land rover paramus, 405 nj-17, paramus, nj), but no failure codes were located. The vehicle was not repaired. A police report was filed. The air bags did not deploy. The contact sustained injuries to the thumb, which did not require medical attention. The manufacturer was not notified. The failure mileage was 72,000.
Tl* the contact owns a 2003 land rover discovery. While driving 2 MPH and making a right turn, the vehicle accelerated without warning. As a result, it crashed into a curb, drove over the sidewalk, and into the street. The brake pedal was applied and the vehicle stopped. The vehicle was towed to an independent mechanic. The vehicle was towed to a local dealer (land rover paramus, 405 nj-17, paramus, nj), but no failure codes were located. The vehicle was not repaired. A police report was filed. The air bags did not deploy. The contact sustained injuries to the thumb, which did not require medical attention. The manufacturer was not notified. The failure mileage was 72,000.
Also reported on the 2003 Land Rover Discovery
Other engine problem
CV axle or driveshaft failure
Other electrical problem
Other brake problem
ABS module or sensor failure
Other powertrain problem
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 3 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 3 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 Land Rover Discovery?
Across 3 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 70,000 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 Land Rover Discovery?
3 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