AtWhatMileage
Electrical · 122 owner reports

Other electrical problem on the 2006 Pontiac G6

7 crashes 2 fires 5 injuries 14 of the 122 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 122
With an odometer reading 91
Reports per 1,000 built 1.2 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 24%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 14
Typical repair $250–$2,000
What it means when it happens Moderate
Rank among this year's problems 5th

When other electrical problem gets reported

Owners of the 2006 Pontiac G6 report other electrical problem at a median of 95,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 45,000 miles and a quarter after 132,500 miles, from 91 reports that carried an odometer reading.

A part like this is normally expected to survive 85,000 miles. It is the 5th most-reported problem on this model year.

The mileage distribution

The reported range runs from 12,500 miles at the tenth percentile to 162,500 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 150,200 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.

24% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 91 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
12,300 miles 46,000 miles 96,000 miles 132,500 miles 162,500 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, 2 a fire 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.

Putting it right typically runs $250–$2,000 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.

The same failure on other years

The same failure is reported on 6 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2009, at a median of 80,000 miles, and latest on the 2005 at 100,000 miles.

By volume the 2006 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. 2005 Pontiac G6 other electrical problem 100k
  2. 2006 (this one) 96k
  3. 2007 Pontiac G6 other electrical problem 89k
  4. 2008 Pontiac G6 other electrical problem 80k
  5. 2009 Pontiac G6 other electrical problem 79k
  6. 2010 Pontiac G6 other electrical problem 95k

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.

Vehicle was purchased in august and have had no problems since. When temperature is cold, below 30 degrees f, stabilitrak does not work and message is displayed in message center. When temp is above 30, stabilitrak works fine. Without traction system, vehicle slides over the road, losing traction very easily. *nm

4,500 miles NHTSA complaint 565084 filed 2005-12-06

Grinding noise when changing gears on 6 speed manual transmission. Clicking or popping noises from transmission when taking foot off of gas. Transmission has a very poor feel generally and generally feels disconnected from the vehicle. Grinding is more apparent with low speed shifts or when turning. The second complaint is that the fog light button and the seat heater switch get noticeably hot while driving with the lights on. The third complaint is that the dash lights do not go on when you put the lights on manually during the day. *nm

200 miles NHTSA complaint 573670 filed 2006-02-24

Fog light and seat heater switch get hot when the lights are on. I measured the temperature of the fog light switch to be 117 degrees when the rest of the vehicle interior was at 59 degrees. I am very concerned that there is a fire hazard but the dealer says it is normal. *nm

500 miles NHTSA complaint 578218 filed 2006-04-05

Also reported on the 2006 Pontiac G6

Other steering problem

773 reports median 79k

Loss of power steering

183 reports median 74k

Cruise control failure

168 reports median 78k

Steering column or shaft failure

122 reports median 72k

Other brake problem

91 reports median 87k

How far this goes

Complaints are voluntary, so 122 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 electrical problem happen on the 2006 Pontiac G6?

Across 91 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 132,500 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.

How common is other electrical problem on the 2006 Pontiac G6?

122 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 1.2 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