AtWhatMileage
Lighting · 7 owner reports

Other lighting problem on the 2000 Mitsubishi Eclipse

1 fire 1 of the 7 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 5 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.

Reports of this failure 7
With an odometer reading 5
Reports per 1,000 built 0.1 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 0%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 1
Typical repair $120–$1,200
What it means when it happens Moderate
Rank among this year's problems 13th

When other lighting problem gets reported

There are 7 reports of other lighting problem on the 2000 Mitsubishi Eclipse, 5 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 86,000 miles. It is the 13th most-reported problem on this model year.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 5 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
— — 76,892 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 fire is 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 $120–$1,200 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 3 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2003, at a median of 65,000 miles, and latest on the 2001 at 150,000 miles.

By volume the 2000 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. 1996 Mitsubishi Eclipse other lighting problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  2. 1997 Mitsubishi Eclipse other lighting problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  3. 1998 Mitsubishi Eclipse other lighting problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  4. 2000 (this one) 77k
  5. 2001 Mitsubishi Eclipse other lighting problem 151k
  6. 2003 Mitsubishi Eclipse other lighting problem 66k
  7. 2005 Mitsubishi Eclipse other lighting problem 70k

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.

Both headlights failed while driving the car at night. Told by dealership that the connections to the bulbs had melted and that this was a defect in the design. Left to drive with out any headlights.*ak

75,000 miles NHTSA complaint 507558 filed 2004-11-19

The headlights turn on at random times. My auto repair center says it is a known issue, but the recall covers vehicles made up to the month before mine was made. I have the same problem as described in nhsta campaign # 99v305001

80,000 miles NHTSA complaint 539336 filed 2005-06-13

I purchased a 2000 mitsubishi eclipse gt in 2001 and recently the left head lamp dimmed and I thought the head lamp needed to be replaced. I purchased a new bulb only to discover the head lamp harness had been melted. Shortly there after I driving home after sunset and both head lamps went out. All I could do was turn on my fog lamps to get light to see where I was going. I live in rural area and without any street lamps I could not even see the road. Once I arrived home I had my husband check the head lamp and the right head lamp harness is now melted as well. Mitsubishi should be held accountable for defective parts and design. I am very thankful that both my children had not been in the car with me when the head lamps decided to go. Additionally, my husband did verify that the fuses were not blown. I have read of others with the same year and model eclipse with the same problem. *nm

76,892 miles NHTSA complaint 566766 filed 2005-12-21

Also reported on the 2000 Mitsubishi Eclipse

Other wheel or tire problem

140 reports median 41k

Other body or interior problem

43 reports median 59k

Other powertrain problem

18 reports median 47k

Other visibility problem

11 reports median 53k

Paint peeling or clear coat failure

10 reports median 126k

Other electrical problem

10 reports median 97k

How far this goes

This page is kept out of search results because 7 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 7 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 lighting problem happen on the 2000 Mitsubishi Eclipse?

Across 5 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 75,000 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 lighting problem on the 2000 Mitsubishi Eclipse?

7 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.1 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