Unclassified problem on the 2002 Toyota 4RUNNER
3 crashes 3 injuries 6 of the 19 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 12 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 unclassified problem gets reported
Owners of the 2002 Toyota 4RUNNER report unclassified problem at a median of 120,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 80,000 miles and a quarter after 155,000 miles, from 12 reports that carried an odometer reading.
It is the 33rd most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 10,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 200,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 192,298 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.
17% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7,502 miles | 78,250 miles | 122,381 miles | 156,750 miles | 199,800 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, 3 a crash and 3 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.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 25 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2022, at a median of 200 miles, and latest on the 1997 at 225,000 miles.
By volume the 2004 carries the most reports, with 87; the 2002 has 19. 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.
1) stopped at stop sign with snow on the ground. Then accelerate turning onto another road. 2) vehicle can accelerate and move a few feet before the trac (traction control) system activates. The power to the engine is then cut off. At this point you are unable to move, stuck in the middle of an intersection. There is a few second delay before you can get any power back to the engine. Ultimately, you are left in the middle of the intersection with no power to the wheels waiting to see if another vehicle is going to t-bone you. I have had multiple, very close calls. Failure occurs every single time you try to accelerate from a stop and the system senses even a tiny loss of traction. The complete loss of accelerator function and delay until the return of power is very dangerous. 3) there is no fix. I was told there is no way to disable the trac system that is supposed to be a safety feature when in reality it is an extremely dangerous system. Toyota must think a little wheel spin is more dangerous than completely taking away the driver's ability to control their own vehicle I have driven vehicles that have trac and it does not…
Tl* the contact owns a 2002 toyota 4runner. The contact stated that while driving at 30 MPH, she crashed into a light pole and the vehicle flipped over three times. The air bags failed to deploy. A police report was filed. The contact sustained a head injury, a broken arm, and sustained cuts on her legs from the broken glass that were stitched. The contact required medical attention. The vehicle was towed and declared totaled. The manufacturer was not made aware of the failure. The approximate failure mileage was 80,000. The VIN was not available.
Frame has excessive rust and has holes in parts of it. The rest of the body and interior are in great condition. Engine runs well and there are otherwise no major mechanical issues. Upon having a minor repair done, inspection showed that the vehicle was unsafe to drive with the frame in that condition as it is about to crack in half. This seems to be prematurely failing compared to the rest of the vehicle.
Also reported on the 2002 Toyota 4RUNNER
Other body or interior problem
Control arm, ball joint or bushing failure
Rust or structural corrosion
Differential or transfer case failure
Other suspension problem
Other brake problem
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 19 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 19 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 unclassified problem happen on the 2002 Toyota 4RUNNER?
Across 12 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 120,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 80,000 miles and a quarter after 155,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is unclassified problem on the 2002 Toyota 4RUNNER?
19 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.3 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