Unclassified problem on the 2008 Lexus Es350
7 crashes 5 injuries 12 of the 48 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 10 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 2008 Lexus Es350 report unclassified problem at a median of 95,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 45,000 miles and a quarter after 135,000 miles, from 10 reports that carried an odometer reading.
It is the 27th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 25,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 155,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 131,270 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
When the reports scatter this far, the mileage is telling you about how these cars were driven more than about the part itself.
20% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22,630 miles | 44,875 miles | 96,500 miles | 133,500 miles | 153,900 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, 7 a crash and 5 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 11 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2017, at a median of 700 miles, and latest on the 2008 at 95,000 miles.
By volume the 2007 carries the most reports, with 70; the 2008 has 48. 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.
Tl*the contact owns a 2008 lexus es350. While driving 40 MPH, the contact's vehicle was struck on the driver's side by another vehicle. The side air bags failed to deploy. The front driver's side door was severely damaged, which should have activated the air bags. The contact sustained a black eye and head injury due to striking the exterior side mirror. A police report was filed. The vehicle was towed to a shop for repairs. The VIN was unknown. The failure mileage was 1,300.
My son-in-law, mark kuhar, was driving my (robert lehman's) 2008 lexus es350 with permission, when it went off the road down an appx. 100 foot hill, rolling end over end, appx. 8 times. None of the air bags were activated. He received serious injuries which he is now recovering from. The car is beyond repairs. Insurance companies for mark and myself have been notified and are active. A police report was filed. *tr
T bone by a 4 runner, driver side door was severely damaged by the impact. 4runner front bumper came off from the impact. Broken glass every where causing minor cuts to the driver and passengers of the lexus 08 es350. Side and curtain airbags did not deploy. Minor injuries sustained on the driver and passengers on the lexus 08 es350. *tr
Also reported on the 2008 Lexus Es350
Airbag inflator rupture
Other speed control problem
Other body or interior problem
Other visibility problem
Other electrical problem
Other brake problem
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 48 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 48 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 2008 Lexus Es350?
Across 10 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 95,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 45,000 miles and a quarter after 135,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is unclassified problem on the 2008 Lexus Es350?
48 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