Fuel leak or fuel odor: which cars, and at what mileage
Where fuel leak or fuel odor shows up
Fuel leak or fuel odor has been reported to NHTSA 7,450 times across 2,186 model years, and the median report arrives at 78,000 miles miles. Measured per 1,000 vehicles built, the 2005 Buick Rendezvous leads the list.
That is earlier than the 90,000 miles this part is normally expected to survive, which is usually why people file in the first place.
At what mileage do fuel leaks get reported?
What fuel leak or fuel odor means here
Complaints are assigned to this mode by matching the owner's own description against a phrase list held in the failure-mode catalogue. The match is made on the text, never on the part number, because owners describe symptoms and not components. It is accurate in bulk and fallible one report at a time.
Where it has to be repaired rather than lived with, $300–$2,500 is the range this site publishes for an independent US shop. It is an editorial estimate, not a figure from NHTSA, and it does not include diagnosis or the labour a dealer would add.
The catalogue classes this mode as critical, which is what decides its weight in every risk score it contributes to.
Where it starts earliest
Ranked by median reported mileage instead of by rate, the earliest onset is on the 2013 Can-AM Spyder RT. Sorted that way the leaders are 2013 Can-AM Spyder RT at 400 miles, 2023 Nissan Rogue at 2,500 miles and 2018 Honda CR-V at 4,000 miles.
Early onset and high rate are different findings. A car that reports this failure rarely but at 40,000 miles is a warranty problem; one that reports it often at 140,000 miles is closer to wear. Both belong on the page, and neither answers the other's question.
Ranked by median reported mileage, lowest first. The faint bar runs from the 10th percentile to the median, so a long tail to the left means some owners hit it very early indeed.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
Which vehicles report it most
The table below ranks 40 model years by reports per 1,000 vehicles built rather than by raw count, which is the only way a ranking like this stays honest: a model that sold two million copies will out-report one that sold thirty thousand even if it is the better car.
At the top, the 2005 Buick Rendezvous shows 222 per 1,000 with 8 reports on file.
Mercedes Benz accounts for 50% of the worst-affected entries on this list, which usually means a shared part, a shared platform, or a shared supplier rather than 20 separate faults.
Longer is worse. The denominator is an estimate of how many of that model year are on the road, derived from the vehicle counts in recall campaigns, so a rare car with a real problem can outrank a common one. Colour is the vehicle's overall risk band, not this mode alone.
| Vehicle | Reports | Per 1,000 | Median | Reported early | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 Buick Rendezvous | 8 | 222.2 | 146k | 0% | High confidence |
| 2002 Subaru Wrx | 159 | 111.1 | 49k | 27% | High confidence |
| 2001 Kia Sportage | 8 | 82.5 | 78k | 0% | High confidence |
| 2008 Chevrolet Corvette | 83 | 23.5 | 50k | 24% | Moderate confidence |
| 2007 Mercedes Benz E350 | 72 | 15.2 | 71k | 10% | High confidence |
| 2006 Mercedes Benz E350 | 65 | 13.7 | 85k | 7% | High confidence |
| 2005 Mercedes Benz E320 | 45 | 9.5 | 75k | 5% | High confidence |
| 2005 Mercedes Benz AMG E55 | 42 | 8.9 | 70k | 7% | High confidence |
| 2004 Mercedes Benz E320 | 37 | 7.8 | 87k | 8% | High confidence |
| 2003 Mercedes Benz E320 | 30 | 6.3 | 110k | 4% | High confidence |
| 2004 Chevrolet Corvette | 52 | 6.2 | 35k | 57% | High confidence |
| 2002 Buick Rendezvous | 24 | 6.1 | 90k | 4% | High confidence |
| 2004 Mercedes Benz E500 | 28 | 5.9 | 112k | 0% | High confidence |
| 2011 Chevrolet Corvette | 8 | 5.6 | 48k | 33% | High confidence |
| 2004 Mercedes Benz AMG E55 | 24 | 5.1 | 79k | 0% | High confidence |
| 2005 Mercedes Benz E500 | 24 | 5.1 | 88k | 4% | High confidence |
| 2014 Mercedes Benz E350 | 19 | 4.9 | 80k | 18% | High confidence |
| 2004 Isuzu Rodeo | 8 | 4.5 | 40k | 0% | High confidence |
| 2009 Chevrolet Corvette | 16 | 4.5 | 47k | 31% | Moderate confidence |
| 2008 Mercedes Benz E350 | 20 | 4.2 | 90k | 0% | High confidence |
| 2018 Honda CR-V | 109 | 3.4 | 4k | 99% | High confidence |
| 2003 Mercedes Benz AMG E55 | 16 | 3.4 | 82k | 0% | High confidence |
| 2003 Mercedes Benz E500 | 16 | 3.4 | 87k | 0% | High confidence |
| 2008 Volkswagen Touareg | 8 | 3.1 | 87k | 40% | High confidence |
| 2007 Mercedes Benz C230 | 16 | 3.1 | 51k | 18% | High confidence |
| 2010 Jaguar XF | 19 | 2.8 | 75k | 12% | High confidence |
| 2013 Chevrolet Corvette | 10 | 2.8 | 26k | 83% | Moderate confidence |
| 2004 Subaru Wrx | 13 | 2.7 | 61k | 0% | Moderate confidence |
| 2012 Mercedes Benz E350 | 10 | 2.5 | 120k | 0% | High confidence |
| 2017 Honda CR-V | 79 | 2.5 | 10k | 94% | High confidence |
| 2004 Subaru Forester | 52 | 2.3 | 106k | 0% | High confidence |
| 2017 Volkswagen Golf | 13 | 2.2 | 51k | 50% | High confidence |
| 2006 Mercedes Benz AMG E55 | 10 | 2.1 | 68k | 0% | Moderate confidence |
| 2007 Chevrolet Equinox | 40 | 2.1 | 82k | 0% | High confidence |
| 2005 Subaru Wrx | 10 | 2.1 | 77k | 20% | Low confidence |
| 2011 Mercedes Benz C300 | 21 | 2.0 | 76k | 17% | High confidence |
| 2013 Can-AM Spyder RT | 10 | 1.9 | 425 | 100% | High confidence |
| 2007 Mercedes Benz E550 | 9 | 1.9 | 67k | 25% | Moderate confidence |
| 2011 Mercedes Benz E350 | 13 | 1.8 | 61k | 0% | High confidence |
| 2007 Mercedes Benz AMG E63 | 8 | 1.7 | 56k | 0% | Moderate confidence |
“Reported early” is the share of this vehicle's reports for this mode that came in below 36,000 miles. Rates are missing where we have no fleet-size estimate for that model year.
How to read this page
Nothing here is a defect investigation. It is a count of what owners chose to write to a federal agency about, sorted so that the sales figures do not decide the order. 7,450 reports is a floor: for every owner who filed, some number simply paid the bill and moved on.
If a specific car matters to you, the useful page is the model-year one, where this mode is shown against every other failure reported on the same vehicle. A single failure mode read on its own always looks worse than it is.
Questions this page answers
Which cars have the most fuel leak or fuel odor complaints?
Per 1,000 vehicles built, the 2005 Buick Rendezvous leads with 8 reports. Ranking by rate rather than raw count keeps high-volume models from topping the list on sales alone.
At what mileage does fuel leak or fuel odor usually get reported?
Across the whole fleet the median report is at 78,000 miles. Individual model years vary widely, which is what the table below shows.
Why the two lists differ. A mode can be common and late (wear that everyone eventually meets) or rare and early (a genuine defect in one production run). The second is what you want to avoid when buying, and it only becomes visible when you separate rate from timing. Both columns come from the same reports; neither is a failure rate, because complaints are voluntary. How this is computed.
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