2018 Nissan Leaf
This year drew an ordinary 66 complaints for a Nissan Leaf — the model's median is 52. What they were about is the unusual part: 22.7% of them mention speed, against 5.7% across the model's other years.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 66 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 52 |
| Involving a crash | 9 |
| Involving a fire | 1 |
| Recalls | 4 |
| EPA combined | 112 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- speed — 22.7% of this year's complaints, against 5.7% across the model's other years (4×).
- caused — 13.6% of this year's complaints, against 2.5% across the model's other years (5.5×).
- module — 18.2% of this year's complaints, against 6.7% across the model's other years (2.7×). Owners wrote it as: module, occur, itself, indicate.
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
THIS ISSUE OCCURS WITH THE NISSAN E-PEDAL ENGAGED/ENABLED. IT HAPPENS INTERMITTENTLY AFTER DRIVING OFF. SYMPTOM REGENERATIVE BREAKING/E-BRAKE DOES NOT ENGAGE. VEHICLE COASTS. NO BLUE BARS LIGHT UP ON THE DASH TO INDICATE THAT REGENERATIVE BREAKING IS ACTIVE. B…
Vehicle would rapidly suffer from a high energy drain when driving at freeway speeds. Range was reduces from 150 miles EPA, to 80-100 miles. Nissan at first said it was due to the high temperature in Arizona. A few weeks later a "Service EV System" lamp came o…
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 19V654000 BACK OVER PREVENTION Fixed free of charge.
- 23V048000 EQUIPMENT Fixed free of charge.
- 23V494000 VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL Fixed free of charge.
- 24V071000 BACK OVER PREVENTION 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 2018 Nissan Leaf? What happened to yours?
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