Other powertrain problem on the 2007 Toyota Rav4
1 crash 1 of the 26 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 powertrain problem gets reported
Owners of the 2007 Toyota Rav4 report other powertrain problem at a median of 45,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 20,000 miles and a quarter after 95,000 miles, from 23 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 92,000 miles. It is the 12th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 1,200 miles at the tenth percentile to 135,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 135,776 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
When the reports scatter this far, the mileage is telling you about how these cars were driven more than about the part itself.
48% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1,224 miles | 21,875 miles | 43,000 miles | 96,123 miles | 137,000 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, 1 a crash is 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 $400–$4,500 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 29 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2021, at a median of 2,500 miles, and latest on the 2023 at 180,000 miles.
By volume the 2002 carries the most reports, with 157; the 2007 has 26. 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 2007 toyota rav4. While driving at a speed of 45 MPH and trying to accelerate to pass a vehicle the transmission shifts to a passing gear but the vehicle will swerve to the right within 100 feet. A representative of toyota and a regional manager drove the vehicle and experienced the exact problem. After two suspension alignments, the problem had not been corrected. The manufacturer still says that this is normal. The failure mileage was 530. The current mileage was 3000.
Tl*the contact owns a 2007 toyota rav4. While driving at any speed, the vehicle suddenly stopped accelerating. The contact did not notice any difference beforehand. The current mileage was 9,000 and failure mileage was 4,000. Updated 11/12/08. *cn updated 11/18/08. *jb
I own a 2007 toyota rav4 limited 4WD v6 and the transmission does not shift correctly at low speeds. A typical example of the problem is seen after slowing down to make a turn onto another street. The transmission does not shift out of overdrive, so when attempting to accelerate, the engine speed increases and the vehicle does not move. The computer then realizes that the car is trying to accelerate and "slams" into gear. This condition also occurs in traffic and making lane changes is very dangerous at low speeds. I have complained to toyota's technical service hotline and had the lead service technician at my local dealer ride with me to see the problem I have been experiencing. I have been told that the car is "within normal operating parameters", but after looking at several web sites, I have seen that this a worldwide issue with every camry, sienna, avalon, rav4 and tundra built in the past several model years. The local service tech told me that in his 28 years of repairing toyota vehicles, he has never seen problems like this and the cars are being designed in such a way that a mechanic cannot fix the car. I complained…
Also reported on the 2007 Toyota Rav4
Steering rack, gear or tie rod failure
Excessive oil consumption
Other engine problem
Steering column or shaft failure
Other steering problem
Other suspension problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 26 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 powertrain problem happen on the 2007 Toyota Rav4?
Across 23 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 45,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 20,000 miles and a quarter after 95,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is other powertrain problem on the 2007 Toyota Rav4?
26 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