Cruise control failure on the 2008 Toyota Avalon
1 crash 1 fire 2 of the 13 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.
When cruise control failure gets reported
Owners of the 2008 Toyota Avalon report cruise control failure at a median of 25,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 15,000 miles and a quarter after 45,000 miles, from 11 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 72,000 miles. It is the 6th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 10,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 55,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 44,000 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
Reports bunched into a band this tight usually mean the component has a life of its own: it goes at roughly the same mileage regardless of who owns it.
73% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10,000 miles | 13,000 miles | 26,000 miles | 43,650 miles | 54,000 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, 1 a crash and 1 a fire 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 $200–$1,400 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 9 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2010, at a median of 1,800 miles, and latest on the 2013 at 85,000 miles.
By volume the 2006 carries the most reports, with 22; the 2008 has 13. 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.
Tl*the contact owns a 2008 toyota avalon. While driving approximately 50 MPH, the vehicle spontaneously began accelerating on its own. The contact depressed the brake pedal with maximum force and placed the vehicle into neutral, but it continued to accelerate to 70 MPH. He smelled a burning odor and the vehicle began decelerating. There were no warning lights illuminated on the instrument control panel and the cruise control was not engaged. The dealer was unable to duplicate the failure and provide a remedy. The VIN was unknown. The failure and current mileages were 11,000.
Tl*the contact owns a 2008 toyota avalon. She stated that since the vehicle was purchased the vehicle accelerated excessively when the cruise control was engaged at various speeds including 35 MPH. The vehicle began to slow down when the brake pedal was engaged. The vehicle will be diagnosed the by dealer. The failure mileage was 305 and the current mileage was 10,400.
Laser cruise control malfunctioned without apparent reason, most important problems it has are uncontrollable acceleration and sudden deceleration, which has nearly caused my ramming into a car in front of me and a car behind me crashing into me. These, along with other problems in the system, occur every time it is engaged. When first presented to the dealer in phone conversation was told it was a psychological reaction to news reports and given an 800 number to a recorded message telling me if I have a problem stop my car and report it to my dealer. I then went to the dealer and was then treated with disbelief. Their initial solution was denial that there is a problem. After demanding a mechanic test drive the car, the technician conceded the problem is exactly as I described. I was then told that their in shop diagnostic test showed there was no problem with the laser cruise. And when I questioned this was incredibly asked if I didn't believe technology when their own mechanic verified that in reality the system was not working during the road test.then they decided to take another tactic. There is a 1/2 inch ding in the front…
Also reported on the 2008 Toyota Avalon
Headlight failure or clouding
Other lighting problem
Other speed control problem
Other body or interior problem
Other electrical problem
Other steering problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 13 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 cruise control failure happen on the 2008 Toyota Avalon?
Across 11 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 25,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 15,000 miles and a quarter after 45,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is cruise control failure on the 2008 Toyota Avalon?
13 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.1 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