Other brake problem on the 1997 Toyota 4RUNNER
2 crashes 1 injury 3 of the 4 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 2 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 other brake problem gets reported
There are 4 reports of other brake problem on the 1997 Toyota 4RUNNER, 2 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 88,000 miles. It is the 11th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 64,267 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, 2 a crash and 1 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 $300–$1,800 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 22 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2025, at a median of 5 miles, and latest on the 2002 at 175,000 miles.
By volume the 2004 carries the most reports, with 37; the 1997 has 4. 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.
I am the only owner of a 1997 toyota 4runner sr5 4x4, which I purchased new in1997. Within in weeks of owning and driving the vehicle, while braking as I drove over irregular road, I noticed that the brakes were not grabbing, l and the ABS braking system was activated, but the vehicle was not stopping, commensurate with the demand that I was putting on the brake pedal. I was very concerned that I was going to hit the vehicle in front of me! After several such experience, in june or july of 1997, I took the car to the dealership and was advised that they found nothing wrong with the braking system. I still own and drive the vehicle, and the braking system is unchanged. Because I am aware of the problem with the brakes, whenever I drive over irregular road surfaces, bumps or expansion joints I keep a considerable distance away from the vehicle in front of me. I still drive the vehicle, and the brake issue has not changed. Another problem that I experienced with the 4runner was the shifting of the backend of the vehicle when driving over irregular road surfaces. However, toyota recalled the vehicle to make what they considered to be…
1997 toyota 4runner sr5 4x4. While braking and going over bumps, potholes, separations in roadways, the brakes will momentarily fail much like it is activating the ABS braking system. *tr
Also reported on the 1997 Toyota 4RUNNER
Other body or interior problem
Other suspension problem
Rust or structural corrosion
Control arm, ball joint or bushing failure
Fuel tank, filler or EVAP failure
Differential or transfer case failure
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 4 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 4 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 brake problem happen on the 1997 Toyota 4RUNNER?
Across 2 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 65,000 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 brake problem on the 1997 Toyota 4RUNNER?
4 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.0 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