2013 Nissan Frontier
This year drew an ordinary 48 complaints for a Nissan Frontier — the model's median is 46. What they were about is the unusual part: 25% of them mention under, against 6.8% across the other years of this generation.
Generation 1 of the Nissan Frontier, which began in 2005 and ran to 2021. Everything below compares this year against the others in that generation, not against a different car wearing the same name.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 48 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 46 |
| Involving a crash | 5 |
| Involving a fire | 1 |
| Recalls | 1 |
| EPA combined | 18.5 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- under — 25% of this year's complaints, against 6.8% across the other years of this generation (3.7×).
- applied brake — 6.3% of this year's complaints, against 0% across the other years of this generation (31.3×).
- fire — 8.3% of this year's complaints, against 2.2% across the other years of this generation (3.8×). Owners wrote it as: fire, hood, under hood.
Words owners used for the same problem are counted together, so a fault written four different ways is measured once. Grouped by which complaints they appear in, not by a list anyone wrote in advance.
What owners wrote
On a dark road going 40MPH I hit a large deer on Oct 7. The front end of my truck was damaged. Air bag went off but never inflated, and I smelled smoke briefly. I was able to drive home and in the morning I noted there were two quarter size burn holes in the a…
SIDE AIR BAGS DEPLOYED WITH NO IMPACT OF VEHICLE. NISSAN CLAIMED THE VEHICLE WAS AT AN ANGLE THAT REQUIRED THE BAGS TO DEPLOY. THE VEHICLE IS A 4X4 TRUCK AND WAS NOT AT ANY ANGLE THAT REQUIRED THE AIR BAGS TO DEPLOY. SPEED WAS 10MPH ON A FLAT DIRT ROAD. EVEN T…
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 14V052000 ELECTRICAL SYSTEM Fixed free of charge.
How this was worked out
Every year of the Nissan Frontier was compared against its own history rather than against other cars, which removes popularity and age from the answer — a common car draws more complaints at equal reliability, and an older one has had longer to accumulate them. A year is flagged when it drew at least 2.5× this model's median and at least 50 complaints.
This is a fault record, not a review. Nobody files a federal complaint to say the car was fine, so it shows what tends to go wrong — not whether owners liked it, and not whether it is a good car.
Source: NHTSA complaints, recalls and investigations, retrieved . Look this vehicle up directly on NHTSA's site to check anything here.
Own a 2013 Nissan Frontier? What happened to yours?
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