AtWhatMileage
Airbag · 14 owner reports

Airbag failed to deploy in a crash on the 2014 Nissan Altima

14 crashes 13 injuries 27 of the 14 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.

Reports of this failure 14
With an odometer reading 13
Reports per 1,000 built 0.0 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 46%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 27
Typical repair $1,000–$5,000
What it means when it happens Critical
Rank among this year's problems 16th

When airbag failed to deploy in a crash gets reported

Owners of the 2014 Nissan Altima report airbag failed to deploy in a crash at a median of 40,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 15,000 miles and a quarter after 60,000 miles, from 13 reports that carried an odometer reading.

A part like this is normally expected to survive 72,000 miles. It is the 16th most-reported problem on this model year.

The mileage distribution

The reported range runs from 10,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 75,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 64,000 miles across the middle 80% of reports.

A spread this wide points at use rather than design. Towing, climate, service history and city mileage all move a failure like this, so the median is a weak guide to any individual car.

46% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 13 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
12,000 miles 15,000 miles 38,000 miles 60,000 miles 76,000 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, 14 a crash and 13 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 $1,000–$5,000 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.

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 20 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2003, at a median of 5 miles, and latest on the 2004 at 115,000 miles.

By volume the 2014 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.

Median
  1. 1996 Nissan Altima airbag failed to deploy in a crash
    no odometer readings given
    —
  2. 1997 Nissan Altima airbag failed to deploy in a crash 58k
  3. 1998 Nissan Altima airbag failed to deploy in a crash 68k
  4. 1999 Nissan Altima airbag failed to deploy in a crash 71k
  5. 2000 Nissan Altima airbag failed to deploy in a crash 80k
  6. 2001 Nissan Altima airbag failed to deploy in a crash 30k
  7. 2002 Nissan Altima airbag failed to deploy in a crash 49k
  8. 2003 Nissan Altima airbag failed to deploy in a crash 5
  9. 2004 Nissan Altima airbag failed to deploy in a crash 115k
  10. 2005 Nissan Altima airbag failed to deploy in a crash 90k
  11. 2006 Nissan Altima airbag failed to deploy in a crash 91k
  12. 2007 Nissan Altima airbag failed to deploy in a crash 100k
  13. 2008 Nissan Altima airbag failed to deploy in a crash 94k
  14. 2009 Nissan Altima airbag failed to deploy in a crash 27k
  15. 2010 Nissan Altima airbag failed to deploy in a crash 16k
  16. 2011 Nissan Altima airbag failed to deploy in a crash 56k
  17. 2012 Nissan Altima airbag failed to deploy in a crash 5k
  18. 2013 Nissan Altima airbag failed to deploy in a crash 61k
  19. 2014 (this one) 38k
  20. 2015 Nissan Altima airbag failed to deploy in a crash 36k
  21. 2016 Nissan Altima airbag failed to deploy in a crash 50k
  22. 2017 Nissan Altima airbag failed to deploy in a crash 57k
  23. 2019 Nissan Altima airbag failed to deploy in a crash 3k
  24. 2020 Nissan Altima airbag failed to deploy in a crash
    no odometer readings given
    —
  25. 2021 Nissan Altima airbag failed to deploy in a crash
    no odometer readings given
    —
  26. 2023 Nissan Altima airbag failed to deploy in a crash 5k
  27. 2024 Nissan Altima airbag failed to deploy in a crash
    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.

My son lost control of his vehicle due to a seizure , he hit a on coming 4 wheel drive truck partly head on , then another truck t-bone him in the passenger side. During the wreck none of the airbags deployed are the seat belt restrain him . His head went thru the windshield partly and the back of his neck broke off the head rest. He has no related issues of seizures of any kind in the past, no one ticketed for the accident period. We come find out that nissan manufacture has a recall on this car because of airbags problems. We never received any kind of noticed from the dealer ship are nissan manufacture period. I' very concern about the safety of this vehicle even being on the road period. *tr

12,000 miles NHTSA complaint 1087379 filed 2014-07-17

My son lost control of his vehicle due to a seizure , he hit a on coming 4 wheel drive truck partly head on , then another truck t-bone him in the passenger side. During the wreck none of the airbags deployed are the seat belt restrain him . His head went thru the windshield partly and the back of his neck broke off the head rest. He has no related issues of seizures of any kind in the past, no one ticketed for the accident period. We come find out that nissan manufacture has a recall on this car because of airbags problems. We never received any kind of noticed from the dealer ship are nissan manufacture period. I' very concern about the safety of this vehicle even being on the road period. *tr

12,000 miles NHTSA complaint 1087380 filed 2014-07-17

Tl-the contact owns a 2014 nissan altima. The contact stated that while driving at a unknown speed, another vehicle was driving at approximately 50 MPH, past a red light and crashed into the front driver's side of the contacts vehicle. The air bags did not deploy. A police report was filed and the contact sustained injuries that required medical attention. The vehicle was towed to the dealer but was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was made aware of the failure. The approximate failure mileage was 10,000. Djr

10,000 miles NHTSA complaint 1145472 filed 2015-01-07

Also reported on the 2014 Nissan Altima

Headlight failure or clouding

177 reports median 85k

Other lighting problem

125 reports median 80k

Other powertrain problem

96 reports median 69k

Other body or interior problem

83 reports median 55k

How far this goes

Complaints are voluntary, so 14 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 airbag failed to deploy in a crash happen on the 2014 Nissan Altima?

Across 13 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 40,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 15,000 miles and a quarter after 60,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.

How common is airbag failed to deploy in a crash on the 2014 Nissan Altima?

14 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