Other electrical problem on the 1998 Toyota Camry
1 crash 5 fires 1 injury 7 of the 27 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.
When other electrical problem gets reported
There are 27 reports of other electrical problem on the 1998 Toyota Camry, 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 9th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 119,750 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, 5 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 29 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2021, at a median of 35 miles, and latest on the 2025 at 190,000 miles.
By volume the 2007 carries the most reports, with 118; the 1998 has 27. 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.
Toyota customer and owner with unfortunate problems with my car driven normally in the ordinary course of the day as an elder. The electrical system has failed, the oil leaks, the floormat interferes with the accelerator pedal and sticks, interfering with braking experienced recently on the ny-ct highway. I paid to repair the electrical failure and oil leaks and still the electrical system as indicated for example by the dashboard which is continuously lit up, I.e. Is still not working properly. I wrote to toyota motor sales, u.s.a., inc. 19001 south western ave. Dept. Wc11 torrance, ca 90501 cc: nancy fein, vp customer service toyota motor sales usa inc., po box 10054 toldeo ohio 43682-4419. *tr
I have a check engine light that won't go away. Supposedly it was related to the o2 sensors. They've both been replaced, to no avail. A dual-certified toyota master mechanic is scratching his head on this one. There's obviously nothing wrong with the engine as it's been performing well for the last couple of years, with an engine light burning brightly, regardless. It's very annoying as it's obviously a useless light, now, and all I can hope for is for the bulb to eventually burn out - as I don't care to get into tearing out the dash to remove it. Very very annoying (now have a piece of black duct tape over the lens but that's hardly a fix). *tr
Ignition key jams, will not turn to start engine, and can not be removed when engine is turned off. Frequency of jamming increased until I switched to using the spare "master" key. It worked fine for a while and then the same problem occurred. Finally, I used the "valet key" and it has worked fine for nearly 2 years. When I recently went to the local toyota dealer to purchase 2 new keys, after nearly 2 hours I was advised that due to the age of the vehicle the new keys could not be programmed without the purchase and installation a new ignition module (on-board computer) costing $1,812 including labor and 2 keys. Toyota's customer experience office has refused any assistance. *js
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
This page is kept out of search results because 27 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 27 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 1998 Toyota Camry?
Across 6 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 120,000 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 1998 Toyota Camry?
27 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