Airbag failed to deploy in a crash on the 1998 Toyota Camry
25 crashes 2 fires 11 injuries 38 of the 26 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 airbag failed to deploy in a crash gets reported
Owners of the 1998 Toyota Camry report airbag failed to deploy in a crash at a median of 110,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 40,000 miles and a quarter after 110,000 miles, from 10 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 72,000 miles. It is the 10th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 30,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 160,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 131,329 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.
20% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29,071 miles | 40,000 miles | 108,000 miles | 108,000 miles | 160,400 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, 25 a crash, 2 a fire and 11 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 $1,000–$5,000 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.
This mode is classified as critical, which means a failure can leave the car unable to stop, steer, or stay out of the way of traffic. It is weighted accordingly in the risk score.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 25 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2018, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 1996 at 200,000 miles.
By volume the 2002 carries the most reports, with 35; the 1998 has 26. 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.
Dt: while driving home from work in the rain on 8/28/2002 there was a toyota pickup truck in front with the tailgate down. The driver was talking on his cell phone. While going over a hill in traffic, the truck in front had bad brake lights. The truck was about 30 yards in front of the consumer's vehicle. The consumer's vehicle was in the left lane, hit the brakes and the front end of the car dropped down and slid into the back of truck. The consumer's vehicle could not swerve around truck because there was a car alongside. Upon impact the air bags did not deploy. The consumer cut his hand and face but refused medical attention. The vehicle was taken to the repair shop and they fixed it. The consumer returned it to toyota because he did not want to drive an unsafe vehicle. *ak *sc
Pulling 1998 toyota camry into parking space. Foot on brake. Put into park. Car suddenly began accelerating. Tried reverse, didn't stop. Tried park again standing on brakes. Didn't stop. Went over curb down hill into creek. Air bags did not deploy when front of car hit bank of creek. Saw puff of smoke after hitting bank come from under car. Turned car off immediately. *nm
Pulling 1998 toyota camry into parking space. Foot on brake. Put into park. Car suddenly began accelerating. Tried reverse, didn't stop. Tried park again standing on brakes. Didn't stop. Went over curb down hill into creek. Air bags did not deploy when front of car hit bank of creek. Saw puff of smoke after hitting bank come from under car. Turned car off immediately. *nm
Also reported on the 1998 Toyota Camry
Other engine problem
Other speed control problem
Other brake problem
ABS module or sensor failure
Other body or interior problem
Other suspension problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 26 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 airbag failed to deploy in a crash happen on the 1998 Toyota Camry?
Across 10 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 110,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 40,000 miles and a quarter after 110,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is airbag failed to deploy in a crash on the 1998 Toyota Camry?
26 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