ABS module or sensor failure on the 2002 Toyota Camry
8 crashes 8 of the 40 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 abs module or sensor failure gets reported
Owners of the 2002 Toyota Camry report ABS module or sensor failure at a median of 20,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 10,000 miles and a quarter after 45,000 miles, from 16 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 95,000 miles. It is the 7th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 1,500 miles at the tenth percentile to 60,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 60,435 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.
69% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1,500 miles | 10,700 miles | 21,171 miles | 46,365 miles | 61,935 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, 8 a crash is 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 $500–$2,400 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 17 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2010, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 2007 at 112,500 miles.
By volume the 2007 carries the most reports, with 105; the 2002 has 40. 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.
While driving at about 35 MPH, I placed my foot on the brake to slow down a bit. The car did not slow down, instead it speed up to about 75 MPH. I hit the brakes harder, but the car would not stop. *ak I quickly pulled on the hand brake and shifted the gear to park, then shut off the engine. I hade the vehicle towed to a toyota dealer. The dealer could not duplicate the problem, so they were not able to make a repair. I have also filed a complaint with toyota.
My wife was slowing for a stop sign off a highway exit ramp when"the brakes did not stick and the car lurched foreward' striking a stopped vehicle.she told the police she was only going 5-10mph at most, but the other vehicle suffered over $500.00 in damages.this was in good road conditions where she travels daily. Prior to this I had told the dealer that the brakes felt mushy and rarely gave confidence. The service records state the following:complaint-brake pedal travels a long way to stop. Reply-brakes function as designed. Normal travel for this type of brake system. [3000 miles later] complaint-brake pedal feels like it loses pressure when stopping. Worried car will not stop at times. Reply-improper adjustment rear drum brake. Obviously there is more wrong than an out of adjustment rear brake. Either the brake system or a combination of the brake system and acceleration system are faulty in this vehicle.*ak
02/23/04, dealer's invoice tocs12154: 04/19/04, dealer's invoice tocs14794. The cd and tape player went bad before the car was two years old. I did not discover this until there was 37,000 miles on the car. The warranty ran out at 35,000 miles. The cd/tape player part of the radio was not even used for a couple of months, so I was not aware there was a problem until after the warranty expired. The dealer charged me $250.00 for a "used" radio they ordered from the manufacturer (a new radio was going to cost $850.00). They were kind enough to not charge me for the installation. Since toyota does not make the radios installed in their vehicles, toyota would not help me with my problem. 03-08-04, dealer's invoice tocs12900:I have a problem with the brake system that concerns me more than the radio malfunction. There is a viabration when I slow down to stop the car. I took my car to the dealer to have this checked. They recommended that the front rotors be turned (for $170.00) and that the rear brake drums be resurfaced (for $127.50) by the time the dealer checked this for me, the car had 38,363 miles. The warranty expired at 35,000…
Also reported on the 2002 Toyota Camry
Other speed control problem
Other brake problem
Other engine problem
Other body or interior problem
Other powertrain problem
Other wheel or tire problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 40 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 abs module or sensor failure happen on the 2002 Toyota Camry?
Across 16 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 20,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 10,000 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 abs module or sensor failure on the 2002 Toyota Camry?
40 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.9 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