2018 Nissan Sentra
This year drew an ordinary 356 complaints for a Nissan Sentra — the model's median is 154. What they were about is the unusual part: 32% of them mention radar, against 9.5% across the other years of this generation.
Generation 2 of the Nissan Sentra, which began in 2013 and ran to 2019. 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 | 356 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 154 |
| Involving a crash | 34 |
| Involving a fire | 6 |
| Recalls | 2 |
| NHTSA crash rating | 4/5 |
| EPA combined | 29.5 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- radar — 32% of this year's complaints, against 9.5% across the other years of this generation (3.4×). Owners wrote it as: radar, emergency, braking, automatic.
- aeb — 7.3% of this year's complaints, against 0% across the other years of this generation (36.5×). Owners wrote it as: aeb, aeb automatic.
- malfunction — 12.9% of this year's complaints, against 3.6% across the other years of this generation (3.6×). Owners wrote it as: malfunction, beeping, referred, location.
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
2018 NISSAN SENTRA SAFETY SYSTEM MALFUNCTION. AUTOMATIC EMERGENCY BRAKING SYSTEM NOT WORKING WITH ERROR DISPLAYED 'FRONT RADAR UNAVAILABLE DUE TO OBSTRUCTION.'. ALSO, CRUISE CONTROL WOULD BECOME INOPERABLE WHEN ERROR CODE APEARED ON INSTRUMENT SCREEN. VEHICLE…
AUTOMATIC EMERGENCY BRAKING (AEB) SYSTEM IS MALFUNCTIONING, DISPLAYING THE WARNING MESSAGE 'FRONT RADAR UNAVAILABLE DUE TO OBSTRUCTION.' THE WARNING WILL CLEAR AND REAPPEAR MULTIPLE TIME WITHOUT ANY DRIVER INTERVENTION DURING A SINGLE TRIP.
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 19V654000 BACK OVER PREVENTION Fixed free of charge.
- 21V135000 EXTERIOR LIGHTING Fixed free of charge.
How this was worked out
Every year of the Nissan Sentra 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 Sentra? What happened to yours?
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