Headlight failure or clouding: which cars, and at what mileage
Where headlight failure or clouding shows up
Headlight failure or clouding has been reported to NHTSA 21,464 times across 3,521 model years, and the median report arrives at 64,000 miles miles. Measured per 1,000 vehicles built, the 2003 Buick Century leads the list.
That is earlier than the 88,000 miles this part is normally expected to survive, which is usually why people file in the first place.
At what mileage do headlights fail?
What headlight failure or clouding 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, $150–$1,800 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 moderate, 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 2015 GMC Sierra. Sorted that way the leaders are 2015 GMC Sierra at 21 miles, 2008 Honda Accord at 33 miles and 2014 Honda Accord at 100 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 2003 Buick Century shows 2,250 per 1,000 with 18 reports on file.
The list spreads across 14 manufacturers with no single one dominating it, which points at a component many of them buy from the same few suppliers.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 Buick Century | 18 | 2,250.0 | 96k | 0% | High confidence |
| 2002 Buick Century | 15 | 1,875.0 | 75k | 10% | High confidence |
| 2005 Spartan K3 | 18 | 225.0 | 900 | 100% | Low confidence |
| 2007 Toyota Camry Solara | 26 | 162.5 | 83k | 4% | High confidence |
| 2003 Dodge Neon | 12 | 47.1 | 66k | 0% | High confidence |
| 2003 Buell Firebolt Xb9r | 15 | 40.4 | 12k | 100% | Low confidence |
| 2013 BMW 535I | 11 | 13.1 | 55k | 0% | Moderate confidence |
| 1996 Dodge RAM 2500 | 20 | 13.1 | 129k | 0% | High confidence |
| 2005 Chevrolet Trailblazer | 46 | 12.9 | 80k | 13% | High confidence |
| 1997 Dodge RAM 1500 | 17 | 11.1 | 142k | 0% | High confidence |
| 2007 Dodge Caliber | 114 | 9.2 | 101k | 0% | High confidence |
| 2008 Chevrolet Corvette | 32 | 9.1 | 67k | 7% | Moderate confidence |
| 2006 Audi A4 | 146 | 9.0 | 58k | 15% | High confidence |
| 2017 Kia Sorento | 35 | 8.9 | 37k | 50% | High confidence |
| 2007 Toyota Prius | 718 | 6.3 | 48k | 24% | High confidence |
| 2015 Acura RDX | 212 | 5.9 | 80k | 3% | High confidence |
| 2006 Toyota Prius | 668 | 5.9 | 47k | 22% | High confidence |
| 2005 Audi A4 | 83 | 5.1 | 60k | 11% | High confidence |
| 2015 Cadillac Srx | 179 | 4.2 | 53k | 22% | High confidence |
| 2007 Chevrolet Trailblazer | 92 | 4.0 | 114k | 8% | High confidence |
| 2005 GMC Envoy | 14 | 3.9 | 122k | 8% | High confidence |
| 2005 Chevrolet Corvette | 67 | 3.9 | 75k | 14% | High confidence |
| 2014 Cadillac Srx | 156 | 3.7 | 56k | 18% | High confidence |
| 2005 Buick Rainier | 13 | 3.6 | 53k | 27% | High confidence |
| 2008 Toyota Prius | 403 | 3.5 | 56k | 21% | High confidence |
| 2012 Cadillac Srx | 145 | 3.4 | 72k | 7% | High confidence |
| 2010 Cadillac Srx | 145 | 3.4 | 75k | 11% | High confidence |
| 2008 Saturn Outlook | 160 | 3.4 | 44k | 11% | High confidence |
| 2018 Kia Sorento | 12 | 3.0 | 67k | 0% | High confidence |
| 2007 Saturn Outlook | 89 | 3.0 | 62k | 10% | High confidence |
| 2014 Acura RDX | 104 | 2.9 | 89k | 6% | High confidence |
| 2004 BMW 330I | 53 | 2.8 | 100k | 0% | High confidence |
| 2024 GMC Canyon | 36 | 2.7 | — | 0% | High confidence |
| 2011 Cadillac Srx | 125 | 2.6 | 80k | 10% | High confidence |
| 2006 Chevrolet Corvette | 45 | 2.6 | 85k | 7% | High confidence |
| 2006 Lexus Gs300 | 25 | 2.5 | 72k | 5% | High confidence |
| 2002 Audi A4 | 19 | 2.4 | 98k | 31% | High confidence |
| 2006 Audi S4 | 21 | 2.4 | 50k | 29% | Moderate confidence |
| 2005 Audi S4 | 21 | 2.4 | 58k | 13% | Moderate confidence |
| 2005 Toyota Prius | 269 | 2.4 | 98k | 6% | High 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. 21,464 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 headlight failure or clouding complaints?
Per 1,000 vehicles built, the 2003 Buick Century leads with 18 reports. Ranking by rate rather than raw count keeps high-volume models from topping the list on sales alone.
At what mileage does headlight failure or clouding usually get reported?
Across the whole fleet the median report is at 64,000 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