Japanese car manufacturer Nissan was founded in 1933 with the merger of two existing car companies, DAT and Jitsuyo. For a long time, the new company used the old Datsun name for many of their exported vehicles, although by 1986 all new cars had the Nissan name.
The first car in Japan to have the Nissan name was the Nissan Model 70, a sedan built between 1938 and 1943, while the company has recently announced that it is launching the brand-new Nissan Ariya electric SUV in 2022. Potential buyers of any new Nissan cars should be aware of some of the common problems which affect the company’s vehicles.
10 Flawed Transmission
Nissan decided to fit a number of their models with a continuously variable transmission (CVT) also known as shiftless transmission system. While these systems can improve fuel efficiency and make for a smoother ride, Nissan owners have experienced more than their fair share of problems with CVT.
These problems include coolant leaks, transmission slipping, and, most seriously, power failures while the car was in motion. Affected cars were the subject of a recall, and the company extended the warranties on these vehicles to cover the cost of repairs.
9 Oil Leaks
Oil leaks are part and parcel of owning a car, especially as time goes on and the vehicle gets a little older. However, when oil leaks start to affect relatively new cars, then you know that a manufacturer has a problem.
In 2011 the company issued a recall notice for 15,000 vehicles that were affected by excessive oil leakages, mainly cars produced by Nissan’s luxury division, Infiniti. The vehicles in question had sub-standard bolts on the oil filter which could easily break and cause oil leaks.
8 Problems With Backup Cameras
Nissan was forced to recall over a million of their vehicles in September 2019, after it emerged that was a significant safety fault on the backup cameras of more than a dozen Nissan models.
It was found that there was a flaw in the system which allowed the owners of affected cars to change the settings on their screen display so that backup camera images no longer appeared – a breach of federal safety standards in the USA. Recalled vehicles included the 2019 Nissan Altima and Nissan Frontier models sold in the States and Canada.
7 Faulty AEB Systems
Autonomous emergency braking systems, or AEB for short, are just one of the many new safety features which are becoming standard on cars as technology improves. Sensors detect when your vehicle might come into collision with another object and applies the brakes much faster than human reaction times would allow.
These systems may be designed to make the roads safer, but this only works if they are operating correctly, and the AEB system on some Nissan cars has been stopping the vehicles suddenly even when there was no collision imminent.
6 Takata Airbag Recall
One of the biggest scandals of recent years in the automotive industry has been the massive recall of millions of vehicles worldwide because there was a fault with their airbags.
The Takata airbags had been installed in cars made by dozens of different companies between 2002 and 2015, but it was found that they could explode, causing serious injury to the driver and passengers. Several Nissan models had been fitted with Takata airbags, and the company recalled the affected vehicles so that the airbags could be replaced.
5 Brake Fluid Leaks
Nissan vehicles haven’t just been affected by problems with oil leaks; the manufacturer also had to recall almost 400,000 cars in 2019 because of an issue with brake fluid leaks. Aside from the obvious problems, this could cause with braking systems, it was also found that the leaking fluid posed a fire risk to affected vehicles.
This was the third time that Nissan has had to recall cars for this problem, and the company even advised owners to park outside and away from buildings until they could get their car repaired.
4 Emissions Scandal
Volkswagen may have been the company whose reputation took the biggest hit as a result of the emissions scandal which started in 2015, but other car manufacturers, including Nissan, also found themselves caught up in the incident.
In the UK, the company has been accused of cheating emissions tests for gas versions of their popular Qashqai SUV as well as a number of diesel models. The company has even been taken to court in the UK over allegations that they also tried to swindle their way through emissions tests.
3 Rusty Bodywork
Anyone who has taken a vehicle off-road knows that driving over uneven surfaces and even though water is a sure-fire way to do some serious damage to the bodywork. Rust is a problem on a lot of SUVs and trucks, but the Nissan Navara pickup can develop serious rust patches even if it only gets driven on the morning commute.
The problem was so serious on some of the Navara models built between 2005 and 2008 that there had been cases where the vehicle had snapped into two pieces.
2 Hood Latch Problem
A faulty hood latch may seem like a small problem compared to some of the faults on this list but imagine the consequences if a vehicle’s hood flips up while it is in motion, blocking the view of the driver and immediately increasing the risk of a serious accident.
Over a million Nissan cars were found to have a potential problem with the latch which kept the hood in place, and almost 2 million vehicles were recalled to have the issue fixed, mainly Nissan Altima cars made between 2013 and 2018.
1 Exploding Sunroofs
The issue of exploding sunroofs is one that has affected just about every car manufacturer, including Nissan. Drivers have had their sunroofs shatter in thousands of tiny pieces of glass or break into larger pieces that could significantly injure passengers in the car.
The problem is more likely in cars with panoramic sunroofs, like the Nissan Qashqai and the InfinitiQX60, but Nissan has also been accused of using a flawed system for treating the glass in their sunroofs which in turns increases the likelihood that they will explode.