Unclassified problem on the 2003 Toyota Tundra
7 crashes 6 injuries 13 of the 76 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 33 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 2003 Toyota Tundra report unclassified problem at a median of 117,500 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 102,500 miles and a quarter after 150,000 miles, from 33 reports that carried an odometer reading.
It is the 51st most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 50,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 217,500 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 167,384 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.
9% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 49,600 miles | 102,000 miles | 118,000 miles | 150,000 miles | 216,984 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, 7 a crash and 6 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 22 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2018, at a median of 2,100 miles, and latest on the 2001 at 165,000 miles.
By volume the 2006 carries the most reports, with 118; the 2003 has 76. 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.
I was in a major car accident that involved both of my bumpers, the front bumper was completely removed. I was hit from behind at a faster speed than I was going and I was pushed into the truck in front of me (another tundra only a 2004). I had over $8,000 in damage and I suffer from cervical/neck/spine injury and sprained right foot. I am in physical therapy and need an mri, as I am not healing as I should be. My problem here is that my air bags never deployed. I am now worried that there is something wrong with them, the impact I had and injury to my body, should have deployed them.*ak
Air bag warning light came on in less than 36 months after warranty expired due to mileage. Cost to repair exceeded $1,200. Shouldn't these government mandated safety features be covered by a longer warranty? *jb
Tl * - the contact has a 2003 toyota tundra. The contact stated that he had a safety recall number (05v254000) on his vehicle. The contact took his vehicle to the dealer 01/16/2007, and the dealer said that they would affix a new sticker to the sun visor and that was there remedy. The contact is concerned that the safety recall stated more to the remedy than what the dealer is willing to repair. The contact would like to know what is correct, what is stated in the safety recall or what the dealer stated he would do. *nm
Also reported on the 2003 Toyota Tundra
Other body or interior problem
Rust or structural corrosion
Differential or transfer case failure
Fuel tank, filler or EVAP failure
Control arm, ball joint or bushing failure
Airbag inflator rupture
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 76 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 76 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 2003 Toyota Tundra?
Across 33 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 117,500 miles. A quarter were filed before 102,500 miles and a quarter after 150,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is unclassified problem on the 2003 Toyota Tundra?
76 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