all vehicles · every Altima year · method

Nissan Altima 2012

Safety complaints filed by owners in the first three years, per 1,000 sold.

0.24 per 1,000

0.8 times this nameplate’s own median · from 70 complaints filed in the first three years, of 425 ever. 95% lower bound 0.19.

Against its own model years

The model year carries far more information than the badge, so this is the comparison that matters.

Model year	Per 1,000	Complaints
2008	0.43	117
2009	0.32	76
2010	0.30	64
2011	0.16	40
2012	0.24	70
2013	1.78	556
2014	0.76	249
2015	0.60	202
2016	0.29	94
2017	0.25	70
2018	0.47	110
2019	0.36	76
2020	0.29	51
2021	0.18	22
2022	0.10	12
2023	0.16	21

What owners describe

Phrases over-represented in these complaints compared with the same component on every other vehicle. Counts are complaints containing the phrase.

Power Train 149 complaints

cvt	57	38%
cvt transmission	35	24%
hour	24	16%
mode	20	14%
whining	16	11%
hot	12	8%

Engine 68 complaints

transmission	19	28%
cvt	13	20%
accelerate	13	20%

Unknown Or Other 56 complaints

transmission

31%

When it breaks

22% of reported failures happened before 30,000 miles (median 75,000 miles, from 307 complaints that recorded one).

Failures arrive late and spread out, which looks like wear. Service history matters more than model year here.

What NHTSA did

1 investigation covering this model year, 0 of which list a recall campaign.

Autoliv Air Bag Propellant Mixture

What owners and forums say

Not built yet. This panel is meant to carry community sentiment beside the filed-complaint data, so the two can be compared. Showing something weaker here would defeat its purpose.

Check this yourself

Example records behind this page:

10423918 · 10429409 · 10436623 · 10440495 · 10441268 · 10443237

Limits of this figure. It counts safety complaints filed with the federal government, which is a floor on failures and not a census: problems that only cost money are under-reported. Complaint rates also reflect how likely a brand’s owners are to file, which cannot be separated from how often the car fails. Sales are calendar-year and the denominator for this nameplate is verified against a published figure.