AtWhatMileage
Fuel · 6 owner reports

Other fuel system problem on the 2008 Nissan Altima

1 crash 2 fires 1 injury 4 of the 6 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 4 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.

Reports of this failure 6
With an odometer reading 4
Reports per 1,000 built 0.4 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 25%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 4
Typical repair $300–$2,200
What it means when it happens High
Rank among this year's problems 31st

When other fuel system problem gets reported

There are 6 reports of other fuel system problem on the 2008 Nissan Altima, 4 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 90,000 miles. It is the 31st most-reported problem on this model year.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 4 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
— — 66,500 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, 2 a fire and 1 an injury are 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 $300–$2,200 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 21 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2014, at a median of 30,000 miles, and latest on the 1997 at 160,000 miles.

By volume the 2013 carries the most reports, with 27; the 2008 has 6. 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.

Median
  1. 1996 Nissan Altima other fuel system problem 40
  2. 1997 Nissan Altima other fuel system problem 159k
  3. 1998 Nissan Altima other fuel system problem 150k
  4. 1999 Nissan Altima other fuel system problem 116k
  5. 2000 Nissan Altima other fuel system problem 86k
  6. 2001 Nissan Altima other fuel system problem 80k
  7. 2002 Nissan Altima other fuel system problem 51k
  8. 2003 Nissan Altima other fuel system problem 61k
  9. 2004 Nissan Altima other fuel system problem 115k
  10. 2005 Nissan Altima other fuel system problem 58k
  11. 2006 Nissan Altima other fuel system problem 91k
  12. 2007 Nissan Altima other fuel system problem 113k
  13. 2008 (this one) 67k
  14. 2009 Nissan Altima other fuel system problem 69k
  15. 2010 Nissan Altima other fuel system problem 75k
  16. 2011 Nissan Altima other fuel system problem 78k
  17. 2012 Nissan Altima other fuel system problem 83k
  18. 2013 Nissan Altima other fuel system problem 50k
  19. 2014 Nissan Altima other fuel system problem 31k
  20. 2015 Nissan Altima other fuel system problem 51k
  21. 2016 Nissan Altima other fuel system problem 44k
  22. 2017 Nissan Altima other fuel system problem 62k
  23. 2018 Nissan Altima other fuel system problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  24. 2019 Nissan Altima other fuel system problem 59k
  25. 2020 Nissan Altima other fuel system problem 53k
  26. 2021 Nissan Altima other fuel system problem 43k
  27. 2024 Nissan Altima other fuel system problem
    no odometer readings given
    —

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.

Check engine light was on. The problem was diagnosed as a faulty seal between the fuel filler pipe and the gas cap. This requires sanding of the filler pipe. The same problem was fixed less than two years ago and the car has only 41,000 miles on it. When questioned about the repeat repair, the dealer indicated that 2 years was a "good" amount of time for this repair which usually has to be repeated in a year or year and a half. Since I have never had a car with this problem before, it sounds like defective parts and/or design to me. *tr

41,000 miles NHTSA complaint 683843 filed 2008-08-18

While driving down road a strong odor of gasoline would fill the inside of car also had smell of antifreeze inside car took it to paul barnett nissan in brookhaven they could not duplicate the problem car was sluggish while driving and the radio went out twice . The interior lights would become very bright and dim while driving. *tr

26,000 miles NHTSA complaint 717800 filed 2009-04-26

I was driving on hwy 610 in houston, texas when the vehicle engine shut off and caught fire. I had gone to the dealership several times initially for a start up key issue, then tires, hub cap, and then the engine shut off on the hwy january 25th 2014, the warranty company noted that there were underlying issues with the vehicle when it was first sold, made a proposal to the dealership, and dealership eventually placed an engine I was told later by a younger gentleman named [xxx] that is was a sued engine. I had taken it home, and next day had issues again. Took it in to get spark plugs changed, but the end result was fire on the hwy way may 12, 2014. Information redacted pursuant to the freedom of information act (foia), 5 u.s.c. 552(b)(6). *tr

92,000 miles NHTSA complaint 1065826 filed 2014-05-16

Also reported on the 2008 Nissan Altima

Other body or interior problem

322 reports median 65k

Other visibility problem

182 reports median 72k

Other electrical problem

39 reports median 75k

How far this goes

This page is kept out of search results because 6 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 6 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 other fuel system problem happen on the 2008 Nissan Altima?

Across 4 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 65,000 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 other fuel system problem on the 2008 Nissan Altima?

6 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.4 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