Unclassified problem on the 2010 Toyota Corolla
31 crashes 24 injuries 55 of the 151 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 56 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 unclassified problem gets reported
Owners of the 2010 Toyota Corolla report unclassified problem at a median of 50,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 5,000 miles and a quarter after 87,500 miles, from 56 reports that carried an odometer reading.
It is the 59th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 400 miles at the tenth percentile to 150,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 150,565 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 435 miles | 5,015 miles | 50,000 miles | 86,553 miles | 151,000 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, 31 a crash and 24 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 27 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2020, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 2000 at 170,000 miles.
By volume the 2005 carries the most reports, with 276; the 2010 has 151. 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.
As I was turning off a main road to a store parking lot my vehicle begain to accelerate after I removed my foot from the brake. I was going about 10mph at the time. I was able to quickly stop the car and turn it off. At this time, I will not allow anyone in my family to drive this vehicle. I am an engineer and there is no question in my mind that this vehicle was accelerating on its own after I removed my foot from the brake and I was driving on a road with no grade (flat road).
I own a 2010 toyota corolla. On several occasions, when I apply the brake, there is a shuddering feeling and sound before the braking hooks in. I would say this has happend about 10 times in the 6 months I have owned the car. In light of the other braking problems, I am more and more concerned about this one. I plan to discuss this to with toyota when I take my car for the other breaking and accelerator repairs. However, in light of all of the problems with the new cars, what is it going to take before the DOT insists that there be a buyback of these 2009-1010 cars, which are obviously full of problems. Where will it end? More accidents? I want my money back. *tr
I was making a routine turn and lost control of steering. It only happened the one time, police report said car rolled two or three times, total loss to car and injury to driver. I don't remember exactly the cause other than I lost control. Can't say any of the recalls did or did not cause the accident. My primary complaint is that I paid for front and side airbags, and none deployed on a car that rolled two or three times. Why am I paying for equipment that is not effective? If a car rolls over at minimum the side airbags should have deployed. I would also think this would trigger the other air bags. With all the recalls how would we know if any of these contributed to the crash? I understand the rollover rating applies to the stability of the car, but rating the safety in a rollover accident should also be rated. Why don't air bags deploy automatically when car hits sides or the roof? We paid for safety and reliability of the toyota, but it appears that the extra money is wasted. *tr
Also reported on the 2010 Toyota Corolla
Other steering problem
Airbag inflator rupture
Other speed control problem
Other brake problem
Other electrical problem
Other body or interior problem
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 151 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 151 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 2010 Toyota Corolla?
Across 56 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 50,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 5,000 miles and a quarter after 87,500 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is unclassified problem on the 2010 Toyota Corolla?
151 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 1.2 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