Strut, shock or spring failure on the 2004 Toyota Camry
1 crash 1 injury 2 of the 3 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 3 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 strut, shock or spring failure gets reported
There are 3 reports of strut, shock or spring failure on the 2004 Toyota Camry, 3 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 105,000 miles. It is the 38th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 26,190 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 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 $500–$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 10 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2005, at a median of 15,000 miles, and latest on the 1996 at 165,000 miles.
By volume the 1997 carries the most reports, with 34; the 2004 has 3. 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.
Purchased brand new 2004 toyota solara in september 2003. Car has pulled left from day one. Have taken car in 5 times. Dealer told me toyota is aware of problem and are working on fix. A case number was assigned to my car and dealership claimed that they fixed car by adding washers to the strut bolts on that side to "shim" the car. Dealer failed to tell me that they also added 5 extra pounds of pressure to the tire on that side to make the car go straight. Not acceptable--the car is not fixed. I have filed a lemon law complaint with toyota 2 weeks ago and am awaiting a call back (they have 30 days to fix) and have also filed a complaint with the attorney general's office. *la
Tl*- the contact owns a 2004 toyota camry. While coming out of the car wash and switching the position gear from neutral to drive the vehicle accelerated to almost 50 MPH for about 20-30 seconds, causing it to crash into a pole. The contact tried to apply the brake, but could not stop the vehicle. Contact can provide pictures if needed. The current and failure mileage were both 26,190.*ak the consumer stated that the vehicle was taken into performance and repaired. The vehicle would shake and veer to the right. Performance dodge picked up vehicle for a 2nd repair and informed the consumer that a damp mount on right side of the vehicle was missing. The vehicle was delivered to consumer on 4/27/07 but consumer is still fearful to drive the vehicle. Updated 05/13/07*tr
While driving on a city street at about 40 MPH I heard a loud bang under the car, like something hit the underside of the car. Then I heard rattling when I rode over bumps in the road. Took it to a service center right away and they found a broken coil spring on the front suspension. Fortunately, the spring broke close to an end of the spring, so the height of the car did not drop noticeably. If the break were in the middle of the spring, then the vehicle would have dropped significantly, perhaps resulting in a crash. The car's mileage was 114,990. The repair costs for two spring/strut assemblies, two stabilizer links and a wheel alignment was $920.
Also reported on the 2004 Toyota Camry
Other speed control problem
Other brake problem
Other steering problem
Other powertrain problem
Other engine problem
Other electrical problem
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 3 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 3 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 strut, shock or spring failure happen on the 2004 Toyota Camry?
Across 3 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 25,000 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 strut, shock or spring failure on the 2004 Toyota Camry?
3 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.1 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