AtWhatMileage
Other · 70 owner reports

Unclassified problem on the 2003 Toyota Camry

29 crashes 16 injuries 45 of the 70 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 37 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.

Reports of this failure 70
With an odometer reading 37
Reports per 1,000 built 1.6 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 35%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 45
Typical repair —
What it means when it happens Moderate
Rank among this year's problems 58th

When unclassified problem gets reported

Owners of the 2003 Toyota Camry report unclassified problem at a median of 62,500 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 25,000 miles and a quarter after 100,000 miles, from 37 reports that carried an odometer reading.

It is the 58th most-reported problem on this model year.

The mileage distribution

The reported range runs from 10,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 122,500 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 112,215 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.

35% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 37 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
9,100 miles 24,500 miles 62,000 miles 100,000 miles 121,315 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, 29 a crash and 16 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.

The same failure on other years

The same failure is reported on 28 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2020, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 1998 at 125,000 miles.

By volume the 2007 carries the most reports, with 281; the 2003 has 70. 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.

What owners wrote

Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.

While driving 45 MPH vehicle was involved in a broad side collision. Upon impact, side airbags did not deploy. Driver and passenger sustained bruised ribs and back injuries. *ak

8,500 miles NHTSA complaint 438148 filed 2003-10-30

Front passenger side and rear passenger side seat belts locked up while driving. This caused bruises on the chest of passengers in those seating positions. Dealer could not duplicate or determine the cause of the problem. *ak

2,300 miles NHTSA complaint 449642 filed 2004-01-14

Front passenger side and rear passenger side seat belts locked up while driving. This caused bruises on the chest of passengers in those seating positions. Dealer could not duplicate or determine the cause of the problem. *ak

2,300 miles NHTSA complaint 449643 filed 2004-01-14

Also reported on the 2003 Toyota Camry

Other speed control problem

217 reports median 33k

Other engine problem

86 reports median 79k

Other brake problem

57 reports median 28k

Other body or interior problem

40 reports median 50k

Head gasket failure

39 reports median 115k

ABS module or sensor failure

30 reports median 8k

How far this goes

This page is kept out of search results because 70 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 70 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 unclassified problem happen on the 2003 Toyota Camry?

Across 37 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 62,500 miles. A quarter were filed before 25,000 miles and a quarter after 100,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.

How common is unclassified problem on the 2003 Toyota Camry?

70 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 1.6 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