CVT failure on the 2013 Nissan Altima
5 crashes 5 of the 180 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.
When cvt failure gets reported
Owners of the 2013 Nissan Altima report CVT failure at a median of 74,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 49,000 miles and a quarter after 91,000 miles, from 155 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 90,000 miles. It is the 5th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 6,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 122,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 116,040 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
When the reports scatter this far, the mileage is telling you about how these cars were driven more than about the part itself.
21% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5,960 miles | 49,000 miles | 74,000 miles | 90,957 miles | 122,000 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, 5 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 $3,000–$8,500 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.
This mode is classified as critical, which means a failure can leave the car unable to stop, steer, or stay out of the way of traffic. It is weighted accordingly in the risk score.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 11 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2015, at a median of 62,500 miles, and latest on the 2011 at 110,000 miles.
By volume the 2013 is the worst of them, which makes this a problem of this specific year rather than of the model as a whole.
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.
During coasting/deceleration from 35 down to 20 MPH, the car will provide a sudden jerk at 25 MPH while the A/C is on max. This devolved into tire skidding after a couple weeks while the dealership was test driving it for replication during the week of 8/20/12. The replacement car that I received on 8/28/12 started showing the same symptoms at 800 miles on 9/7/12. Current diagnosis of the manufacturer of the original car indicated the car required a new CVT. At the time, the eta for replacing the CVT (on the original car) was at least 3 weeks. *tr
Approximately two weeks after purchasing my brand new 2013 altima 3.5 s the car developed a shudder and vibration when I would accelerate slightly. It also occurred going up small hills, and when I would come to a complete stop then pull off (for instance at a red light). After noticing this, I scheduled an appointment with the dealer, and we did a test drive in hopes of mimicking the issue. The mechanic advised me that this was normal for a CVT engine, and that everything was fine. I wasn't quite convinced, but I wanted to trust his opinion, since this was my first time driving a car with a CVT engine. However, a few weeks passed and the shudder and vibration got worse. The car even jerked forward once when I was pressing on the brakes. This prompted me to schedule another visit with the dealer. This time the same mechanic from the first visit and the manager rode along with me. During this test drive the manager felt the sudden shudder, once we came to a complete stop and slightly accelerated. This prompted them to replace my transmission, not even 30 days after my purchase. I picked my car up from the dealer on 12/7/12 after…
I have owned this car for all of a week. There are at least 2 major safety concerns. The first is the passenger air bag. The light on the dash indicates that the air bag is "off" when my wife sits in the passenger seats. She is an adult, height about 5' 2" and weighs approx. 120 lbs. Apparently I am not the only one with this issue. Calls to nissan are a waste of time at this point as I'm told nothing about how this will be resolved. The other issue is with the CVT transmission. Under light acceleration, at about 1200-1500 RPM there is a vibration and its very noisy. It almost seems like the car is going to die out. The other issues I am having with the car of which there are a few are not necessarily safety related so I wont post them here. Needless to say, there are better and safer choices out there. Choose wisely. *tr
Also reported on the 2013 Nissan Altima
Headlight failure or clouding
Airbag warning light or occupant sensor fault
Control arm, ball joint or bushing failure
Other powertrain problem
Other body or interior problem
Other lighting problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 180 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 cvt failure happen on the 2013 Nissan Altima?
Across 155 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 74,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 49,000 miles and a quarter after 91,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is cvt failure on the 2013 Nissan Altima?
180 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.6 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