Control module (ECM/PCM/BCM) failure on the 2007 Nissan Altima
1 crash 1 of the 5 reports for this failure mention a crash, a fire, an injury or a death. Those are the owner's words on the complaint form, not a verified finding, and one report can mention more than one.
Only 3 reports for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.
When control module (ecm/pcm/bcm) failure gets reported
There are 5 reports of control module (ECM/PCM/BCM) failure on the 2007 Nissan Altima, 3 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 92,000 miles. It is the 24th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 3,700 miles | — | — |
Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.
What a percentile can and cannot tell you here
These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.
What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.
Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.
What happens, and what it costs
Of these reports, 1 a crash is mentioned. Owners write their own complaints and the agency does not verify them, so read this as what the reports say happened rather than as a confirmed count.
Putting it right typically runs $700–$3,000 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 16 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2007, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 2016 at 115,000 miles.
By volume the 2003 carries the most reports, with 74; the 2007 has 5. A mode that appears across most years of a model is usually a design choice rather than a bad batch.
If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
Within a week of purchasing the car I noticed that the light indicating that the passenger side airbag was off would illuminated when the 180 lb husband would sit in the passenger seat properly restrained. Not only would it come on and stay on, but it would go off after a little while then come back on. A while later, it would come back on, then go off again. The dealership where I purchased the car reset the computer, but the problem occurred again. At this time, I had a 55 lb child sit in the passenger seat and buckle up the light did not come on. As I understood , it was designed to come on in this situation. The dealership has since put a seat from a new vehicle . Nissan was in no hurry to ship the dealer a new seat into the car, but the same problem happened again. Now, when I have articles that were somewhat heavy , 20-30 lb, ) in the passenger seat without the seat belt buckled the light will come on, go off, and come back on again multiple times at odd intervals. I didn't believe the sensor is working properly when anyone was in the car.*ak
After heating up (an hour or so of driving), the check engine light comes on and the transmission begins to fail. Push the gas pedal all the way down, and the RPM's go way up, but car barely accelerates. First attempt at dealership, they could not find the problem. A day later, the problem happened again. The second attempt, they replaced the transmission control module. A day later, it happened again. Currently at the dealership for the third time. Car only has 4,500 miles on it. Beginning to get pretty frustrating. *tr
Tl*the contact owns a 2007 nissan altima. Whenever someone sits in the front passenger seat, the air bag light would flash indicating that the air bag was deactivated. The contact took the vehicle to a dealer on march 9th to have the front passenger seat air bag sensor replaced. In december the problem recurred with the front passenger air bag light indicating that the air bag was off. The contact called the manufacturer regarding the air bag light and sensor and they sent a technician to diagnose the vehicle. The technician could not recreate the problem with the air bag light or sensor; therefore, the manufacturer will not repair the vehicle. The contact is concerned about the risk involved due to the air bag sensor malfunctioning and the potential for a serious injury in the event a crash occurs. The failure mileage was 15,211.
Also reported on the 2007 Nissan Altima
Control arm, ball joint or bushing failure
Other engine problem
Master cylinder or brake booster failure
Other body or interior problem
Other powertrain problem
Other electrical problem
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 5 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.
Complaints are voluntary, so 5 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.
Questions this page answers
At what mileage does control module (ecm/pcm/bcm) failure happen on the 2007 Nissan Altima?
Across 3 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 5,000 miles. A quarter were filed before — and a quarter after —. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is control module (ecm/pcm/bcm) failure on the 2007 Nissan Altima?
5 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.0 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.
What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars
Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed