Airbag failed to deploy in a crash on the 2016 Toyota Corolla
20 crashes 17 injuries 37 of the 20 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 airbag failed to deploy in a crash gets reported
Owners of the 2016 Toyota Corolla report airbag failed to deploy in a crash at a median of 60,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 35,000 miles and a quarter after 70,000 miles, from 17 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 72,000 miles. It is the 2nd most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 20,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 75,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 58,800 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
Reports bunched into a band this tight usually mean the component has a life of its own: it goes at roughly the same mileage regardless of who owns it.
35% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17,600 miles | 34,800 miles | 60,000 miles | 70,808 miles | 76,400 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, 20 a crash and 17 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 $1,000–$5,000 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 25 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2021, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 1998 at 250,000 miles.
By volume the 2014 carries the most reports, with 31; the 2016 has 20. 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.
Tl* the contact owns a 2016 toyota corolla. While driving at a low speed, the vehicle independently accelerated without warning. The contact crashed into another vehicle. The air bags did not deploy. A police report was not filed. The vehicle was driven away by the contact. There were one injury that required medical attention. The dealer and the manufacturer were not contacted. The failure mileage was approximately 11,800.
I was driving southbound on the I-5 going 75 MPH when I veered off the road into a ditch. The entire vehicle is damaged, especially the front end. The vehicle is totaled and the air bags did not deploy. Ems took me to the hospital because I had horrible chest pain and it was hard to breathe. I had to spend the night in the hospital so that they could monitor my chest because I now have a broken my sternum. The doctors told me that if my air bags deployed, I would not have broken my sternum.
Takata recall? I was involved in an auto accident where my 2016 toyota corolla le was t-boned on the front passenger side/front corner(headlight area) and then the other vehicle also hit me along the back half of the passenger side as well. I was making a left turn on a city blvd when I was hit. Passenger side curtain air bags deployed. I was hit at a speed or 40-55mph. The front air bags did not deploy and the seat belt let me go forward( (I believe I hit the steering wheel), I have a bruised sternum and an aortic aneurysm in my descending aorta as a result of the accident.
Also reported on the 2016 Toyota Corolla
Seat belt or retractor failure
Other brake problem
Other steering problem
Other speed control problem
Other engine problem
Other body or interior problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 20 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 failed to deploy in a crash happen on the 2016 Toyota Corolla?
Across 17 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 60,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 35,000 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 airbag failed to deploy in a crash on the 2016 Toyota Corolla?
20 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.2 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