Airbag failed to deploy in a crash on the 2000 Toyota Camry
31 crashes 21 injuries 2 deaths 54 of the 31 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 2000 Toyota Camry report airbag failed to deploy in a crash at a median of 100,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 60,000 miles and a quarter after 125,000 miles, from 15 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 72,000 miles. It is the 4th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 15,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 235,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 219,791 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14,209 miles | 59,100 miles | 100,000 miles | 123,000 miles | 234,000 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, 31 a crash, 21 an injury and 2 a fatality 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 34; the 2000 has 31. 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.
The consumer stated that when the vehicle was hit in the front center, the air bag did not deploy, and the seat belt broke. The dealer was notified. *ak the consumer had run into a pole and fled the scene. The police officer located the consumer and as he talked to him, the consumer seemed confused and disoriented and an ambulance was dispatched to the consumer's home where the officer found him. The consumer died from his injuries. *scc *jb
The consumer stated that when the vehicle was hit in the front center, the air bag did not deploy, and the seat belt broke. The dealer was notified. *ak the consumer had run into a pole and fled the scene. The police officer located the consumer and as he talked to him, the consumer seemed confused and disoriented and an ambulance was dispatched to the consumer's home where the officer found him. The consumer died from his injuries. *scc *jb
Accident was a head-on collision into a parked car at 35-40 miles per hour. Car was a 2000 toyota camry. The air bag did not deploy. The car was totaled. Only one person was in the car at the time of the accident. The air bag failure resulted in a back injury (likely a pulled ligament) to the driver. This toyota camry had only one owner; I purchased the car in 2000. The air bags have never previously been deployed. The car that was hit was a toyota corolla s. The car was pushed into another car in front of it; the air bags in the corolla did not deploy either. Only one person was in this car; the driver of the corolla had whiplash from the accident. *tr
Also reported on the 2000 Toyota Camry
Other speed control problem
Other body or interior problem
Other engine problem
Other brake problem
Other wheel or tire problem
Other powertrain problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 31 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 2000 Toyota Camry?
Across 15 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 100,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 60,000 miles and a quarter after 125,000 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 2000 Toyota Camry?
31 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 2.3 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