2015 Nissan Leaf
This year drew an ordinary 108 complaints for a Nissan Leaf — the model's median is 52. What they were about is the unusual part: 63.9% of them mention brake, against 10.6% across the model's other years.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 108 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 52 |
| Involving a crash | 8 |
| Recalls | 4 |
| NHTSA crash rating | 4/5 |
| EPA combined | 114 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- brake — 63.9% of this year's complaints, against 10.6% across the model's other years (6.1×).
- brakes — 59.3% of this year's complaints, against 11.7% across the model's other years (5.1×).
- pedal — 44.4% of this year's complaints, against 9.7% across the model's other years (4.6×).
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
STARTED THE CAR TO GO TO WORK AND THE BRAKES FAULTED. ABS, BRAKE, TCS LIGHTS ILLUMINATED. PEDAL GOES TO THE FLOOR AND MAKES STRANGE ABS NOISES ON DRY PAVEMENT. TIRES ARE PROPERLY INFLATED. DEALER WANTS $4600 TO REPLACE BRAKE CONTROL UNIT AND ABS CONTROL UNIT.…
WHEN APPLYING THE BRAKES WHILE MOVING IN ANY FORWARD DIRECTION AND THE VEHICLE ROLLS OVER A POTHOLE (OR SIMILAR FEATURE) THE BRAKES INSTANTLY BECOME SOFT. THE VEHICLE DOESN'T SLOW AT THE ANTICIPATED RATE AND ADDITIONAL PRESSURE NEEDS TO BE APPLIED TO THE BRAKE…
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 17V253000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
- 16V119000 SERVICE BRAKES Fixed free of charge.
- 16V244000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
- 23V296000 EQUIPMENT Fixed free of charge.
How this was worked out
Every year of the Nissan Leaf 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 2015 Nissan Leaf? What happened to yours?
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