AtWhatMileage
Electrical · 10 owner reports

Other electrical problem on the 2013 Toyota Avalon

1 fire 1 injury 2 of the 10 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 6 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.

Reports of this failure 10
With an odometer reading 6
Reports per 1,000 built 0.1 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 67%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 2
Typical repair $250–$2,000
What it means when it happens Moderate
Rank among this year's problems 5th

When other electrical problem gets reported

There are 10 reports of other electrical problem on the 2013 Toyota Avalon, 6 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 85,000 miles. It is the 5th most-reported problem on this model year.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 6 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
— — 24,600 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 fire 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 $250–$2,000 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 20 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2010, at a median of 800 miles, and latest on the 1996 at 200,000 miles.

By volume the 2011 carries the most reports, with 20; the 2013 has 10. 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.

What owners wrote

Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.

Re:report receipt date: oct 17, 2013 NHTSA campaign number: 13v442000 component(s): air bags , electrical system , equipment toyota needs to correct the defective drain line. The condensate that is not draining out of the evaporator is encouraging the growth of mold in the evaporator with an accompanying obnoxious odor. Could the mold be a toxic mold? The root problem needs to be solved. *tr

500 miles NHTSA complaint 1016850 filed 2013-10-21

I received a recall notice on my vehicle on february 6, 2014 and every time I have called the dealership to have my hvac assembly repaired they tell me that the parts are on backorder. I feel like they are putting me and my safety at risk by not producing a fix for this recall. *tr

14,200 miles NHTSA complaint 1058742 filed 2014-04-22

While driving the vehicle at approximately 45 MPH on a clear sunny day the windshield wipers turned on and began to operate at full speed and would not respond at attempts to stop them. The horn started going off with alarm noises in the vehicle. The smell of an electrical odor and white smoke began to enter the cabin through the dash. Attempts to pull the vehicle over were prevented as the steering wheel locked. The brakes would not respond or work despite stepping on them with both feet and attempting to pump them. The vehicle was still traveling on the road and down a hill with no electrical, steering, or power function of the vehicle. As the vehicle slowed the passenger jumped out. Fire began to come through the dash and upon the driver opening his door fire also came into the cabin from beneath the vehicle. The driver jumped out just before the vehicle careened down an embankment and exploded 3 times. *tr

1,800 miles NHTSA complaint 1104695 filed 2014-09-01

Also reported on the 2013 Toyota Avalon

Other visibility problem

26 reports median 10k

Other body or interior problem

24 reports median 3k

Other speed control problem

18 reports median 45k

Sunroof failure or glass breakage

13 reports median 450

Other brake problem

9 reports median 45k

Wiring harness or short circuit

6 reports median 15k

How far this goes

This page is kept out of search results because 10 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 10 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 electrical problem happen on the 2013 Toyota Avalon?

Across 6 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 25,000 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 electrical problem on the 2013 Toyota Avalon?

10 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