AtWhatMileage
Airbag · 11 owner reports

Airbag failed to deploy in a crash on the 2017 Toyota Rav4

11 crashes 9 injuries 20 of the 11 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.

Reports of this failure 11
With an odometer reading 11
Reports per 1,000 built 0.0 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 82%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 20
Typical repair $1,000–$5,000
What it means when it happens Critical
Rank among this year's problems 8th

When airbag failed to deploy in a crash gets reported

Owners of the 2017 Toyota Rav4 report airbag failed to deploy in a crash at a median of 20,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 10,000 miles and a quarter after 25,000 miles, from 11 reports that carried an odometer reading.

A part like this is normally expected to survive 72,000 miles. It is the 8th most-reported problem on this model year.

The mileage distribution

The reported range runs from 15 miles at the tenth percentile to 50,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 48,393 miles across the middle 80% of reports.

A window that narrow is the signature of a part that fails on its own schedule rather than on how the car is driven — which is usually a design or supplier problem rather than wear and tear.

82% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 11 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
15 miles 9,258 miles 18,500 miles 23,986 miles 48,408 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, 11 a crash and 9 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 20 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2013, at a median of 400 miles, and latest on the 1998 at 105,000 miles.

By volume the 2010 carries the most reports, with 11; the 2017 has 11. 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.

Median
  1. 1997 Toyota Rav4 airbag failed to deploy in a crash
    no odometer readings given
    —
  2. 1998 Toyota Rav4 airbag failed to deploy in a crash 105k
  3. 1999 Toyota Rav4 airbag failed to deploy in a crash 105k
  4. 2001 Toyota Rav4 airbag failed to deploy in a crash 12k
  5. 2002 Toyota Rav4 airbag failed to deploy in a crash 33k
  6. 2003 Toyota Rav4 airbag failed to deploy in a crash 18k
  7. 2004 Toyota Rav4 airbag failed to deploy in a crash 81k
  8. 2005 Toyota Rav4 airbag failed to deploy in a crash 27k
  9. 2006 Toyota Rav4 airbag failed to deploy in a crash 165k
  10. 2007 Toyota Rav4 airbag failed to deploy in a crash 36k
  11. 2008 Toyota Rav4 airbag failed to deploy in a crash 97k
  12. 2009 Toyota Rav4 airbag failed to deploy in a crash 64k
  13. 2010 Toyota Rav4 airbag failed to deploy in a crash 59k
  14. 2011 Toyota Rav4 airbag failed to deploy in a crash 44k
  15. 2012 Toyota Rav4 airbag failed to deploy in a crash 59k
  16. 2013 Toyota Rav4 airbag failed to deploy in a crash 379
  17. 2014 Toyota Rav4 airbag failed to deploy in a crash 17k
  18. 2015 Toyota Rav4 airbag failed to deploy in a crash 30k
  19. 2016 Toyota Rav4 airbag failed to deploy in a crash 32k
  20. 2017 (this one) 19k
  21. 2018 Toyota Rav4 airbag failed to deploy in a crash 11k
  22. 2019 Toyota Rav4 airbag failed to deploy in a crash 3k
  23. 2020 Toyota Rav4 airbag failed to deploy in a crash 2k
  24. 2021 Toyota Rav4 airbag failed to deploy in a crash 14k
  25. 2024 Toyota Rav4 airbag failed to deploy in a crash 5k

Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens

Also reported on the 2017 Toyota Rav4

Other electrical problem

78 reports median 51k

Other engine problem

28 reports median 60k

Other brake problem

26 reports median 10k

Headlight failure or clouding

16 reports median 6k

Other body or interior problem

14 reports median 23k

Cruise control failure

12 reports median 9k

How far this goes

Complaints are voluntary, so 11 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 2017 Toyota Rav4?

Across 11 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 20,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 10,000 miles and a quarter after 25,000 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 2017 Toyota Rav4?

11 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.0 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