Parking brake failure on the 2002 Toyota Camry
7 crashes 3 fires 4 injuries 14 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.
When parking brake failure gets reported
Owners of the 2002 Toyota Camry report parking brake failure at a median of 115,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 70,000 miles and a quarter after 155,000 miles, from 8 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 88,000 miles. It is the 22nd most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 35,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 160,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 126,740 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.
13% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 33,100 miles | 68,500 miles | 117,100 miles | 154,200 miles | 159,840 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, 7 a crash, 3 a fire and 4 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–$1,300 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 15 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2006, at a median of 3 miles, and latest on the 2002 at 115,000 miles.
By volume the 2007 carries the most reports, with 35; the 2002 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.
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 waiting at a stop sign consumer pressed the brakes and vehicle surged forward. Consumer continued to press the brakes and applied the emergency brake, and vehicle continued to surge forward, eventually colliding with a snow bank. There were no injuries, and no police report. Dealer claimed there was nothing wrong with the vehicle, and that it was consumer's fault.*ak *la
I was on a 150 mile trip. Was going down a hill in the country and lost speed control of my car. The car was going faster and faster and the brakes were doing nothing. We flew over a railroad crossing and through an intersection. I brought the car under control using the emergency brake. *tr
We were leaving a gas station and proceeded to go around the back of the gas station but decided there was insufficient amount of area to go through between the gas station and an iga store.. The wife put the camry in reverse and the engine accelerated and backed into a telephone pole ..it threw us forward and again backed into the pole.. My wife automatically put the car in drive and the car shot through between the store and the gas station.. It broke both side mirrors and scratched down the sides of the car.. We proceeded into three lanes of traffic, hitting a honda van in the passenger door.. The car kept going across two more lanes of traffic and into the gas station across the street before I finally reacted and told the wife to apply the emergency brake...the car stopped about two feet from hitting another vehicle..and the other gas station.. Both vehicles were totaled in the accident.. The car would not stop even with my wife riding the brake until we hit the van.. Witnesses said they heard the brakes squealing as we were coming out of the gas station area.. *tr
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 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 parking brake failure happen on the 2002 Toyota Camry?
Across 8 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 115,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 70,000 miles and a quarter after 155,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is parking brake failure on the 2002 Toyota Camry?
10 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.2 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