Airbag inflator rupture on the 2008 Toyota Corolla
2 crashes 1 injury 3 of the 57 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 4 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 airbag inflator rupture gets reported
There are 57 reports of airbag inflator rupture on the 2008 Toyota Corolla, 4 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 80,000 miles. It is the 1st most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 93,000 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, 2 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 $0–$0 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 15 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2015, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 2003 at 125,000 miles.
By volume the 2009 carries the most reports, with 388; the 2008 has 57. 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.
Takata recall I received a "remedy notice" from toyota regarding this recall and made an appointment with my toyota dealer. After dropping my car off at the dealership to have this resolved, I received a phone call notifying me that they could not "fix" the issue related to this recall. I was informed that as toyota has limited the number of "remedy kits" to 6 per dealership, per week, I would have to wait approximately 3 months (or more) before parts would be available to "fix" my vehicle. (never mind the fact that the dealership should have told me they did not have the parts when the appointment was made and wasted my time, but that's another issue). The original recall announcement I received from toyota stated "until the remedy becomes available in your location, we recommend that you do not operate the vehicle with an occupant in the front passenger seat". So, I am to be deprived of using the front passenger seat of my vehicle for an additional 3 months, or more (after having receiving the remedy notice), because toyota chooses to limit the number of parts available to local dealers to remedy this issue. That is ridiculous…
Tl* takata recall. The contact owned a 2008 toyota corolla. While driving approximately 35 MPH, the driver crashed into the rear of another vehicle. The air bags deployed and the front passenger side air bag deployed violently. The driver sustained bruising to the face and the front passenger sustained a severe contusion from the lower abdominal area to the breast, a fractured sternum, and a bruised face. The passenger required medical attention. A police report was filed. The vehicle was destroyed and towed. The manufacturer was not made aware of the failure. The VIN was included in NHTSA campaign number: 16v127000 (air bags). The failure mileage was approximately 45,000. Updated 09/23/16*lj *js
"takata recall", airbags failed to inflate. Car was in motion and hit a deer on highway and car is now deemed totaled by insurance company adjuster. Recall on this vehicle was taken to toyota dealer approximately 2 months ago and supposedly taken care of. Fortunately, no one in vehicle was insured. I wonder if there was some faulty instillation or the airbags were even replaced? The car was towed to a salvage location today in st. Louis, mo.
Also reported on the 2008 Toyota Corolla
Other speed control problem
Control module (ECM/PCM/BCM) failure
Other engine problem
Other brake problem
Airbag failed to deploy in a crash
Seat belt or retractor failure
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 57 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 57 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 airbag inflator rupture happen on the 2008 Toyota Corolla?
Across 4 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 95,000 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 airbag inflator rupture on the 2008 Toyota Corolla?
57 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.4 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