Other speed control problem on the 2004 Toyota Corolla
21 crashes 7 injuries 2 deaths 30 of the 47 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 other speed control problem gets reported
Owners of the 2004 Toyota Corolla report other speed control problem at a median of 42,500 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 22,500 miles and a quarter after 70,000 miles, from 37 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 78,000 miles. It is the 1st most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 12,500 miles at the tenth percentile to 107,500 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 96,000 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.
38% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12,400 miles | 22,000 miles | 43,100 miles | 70,000 miles | 108,400 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, 21 a crash, 7 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 $250–$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.
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 23 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2010, at a median of 6,000 miles, and latest on the 2000 at 130,000 miles.
By volume the 2009 carries the most reports, with 163; the 2004 has 47. 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.
I bought a brand new 2004 toyota corolla in may this year. A few days later I was driving on the free way and the new car accelerated by itself. I tried to step on the brake to slow down, it became uncontrollable. I was driving at 60 miles per hour. Finally I have to exit the free way and the car hit the divider and got totally crashed.*ak
While idling at a stop light vehicle surged. *ak vehicle has had 600 RPM surges while in park and while at idle for no reason. The manufacturer appeared to be aware of the problem with the camry models but has received no reports of problems with the corolla. *nm
I was braking for a stoplight. After coming to a complete stop the engine began to race with the rpms rising above 4000 before I turned off the ignition. I had to press down on the brake pedal as hard as I could and was barely able to hold the car at the intersection. This was the second time this had happened. The first time occurred approximately 2 months earlier. During that incident, the engine raced to over 6,000 rpms before I shut off the ignition. After both incidents, I took the car to lithia toyota in redding, ca. Both times they said that no error codes were set and since the car engine did not race during the test drives, there was nothing wrong with it. They stated tha they had never heard of any other toyota vehicles behaving in this manner, yet I found 25 similar complaints regarding the 2004 camry on this website, and 21 such complaints for 2002 through 2005 model year corollas.
Also reported on the 2004 Toyota Corolla
Other engine problem
Airbag inflator rupture
Other visibility problem
Airbag failed to deploy in a crash
Other body or interior problem
Seat belt or retractor failure
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 47 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 other speed control problem happen on the 2004 Toyota Corolla?
Across 37 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 42,500 miles. A quarter were filed before 22,500 miles and a quarter after 70,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is other speed control problem on the 2004 Toyota Corolla?
47 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.3 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