Other engine problem on the 2016 Nissan Altima
1 crash 1 injury 2 of the 71 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 other engine problem gets reported
Owners of the 2016 Nissan Altima report other engine problem at a median of 55,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 40,000 miles and a quarter after 80,000 miles, from 43 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 95,000 miles. It is the 2nd most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 10,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 95,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 85,280 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.
23% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10,120 miles | 40,700 miles | 54,220 miles | 81,100 miles | 95,400 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 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–$4,000 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 24 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2020, at a median of 10,000 miles, and latest on the 1999 at 105,000 miles.
By volume the 2003 carries the most reports, with 272; the 2016 has 71. 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.
I have been having chronic issues with engine on my 2016 nissan altima. Initially (11/2016), the car would "jump/skip" when I would try to accelerator and even feeling like it was going to cut off on me. When I called I was informed it was due to defect and it was on recall. The issues appeared to resolve until 11/2017 I started experiencing the same issue but worse and was not able to accelerate while I was driving to work and back home. This occurred on florida turnkpike and local highways. Cars were hooking at me because I was not able to proceed when light turned green, even though I was flooring the car pedal. When I took the car to the shop, I was informed it was my transmission and they had to rebuild it. Afterwards, I continue to have problems with the car cutting off on me and acceleration issues. I brought it back, and I was told it was the crank sensor. They replaced it but know the engine continue to sound like it is working overtime to perform and make a constant high pitch sound. I am bring it back to them a 3rd time to investigate.
While already in motion the vehicle accelerated extremely slowly once again as I have reported on this website before, but this time it was more dangerous because as I was merging onto the freeway, I was pressing on the accelerator and when the RPM got to 2000, it stopped and the vehicle was accelerating extremely slow. There was a 18 wheel truck approaching me fast from behind, but I could not get any speed. Luckily he swerved on to the next lane and passed me. The RPM meter stopped at 2000 and it took 22 seconds to get from 60 MPH to 75mph as the video shows. It happened several more times during this drive and I was able to record each instance panning from the gauge display to the accelerator showing I am pressing it all the way down and the vehicle doesn't respond. I took the vehicle to nissan and when I showed the video to the service representative, he immediately tried to blame the issue on my floor mats. He said that it appears the floor mats were preventing the accelerator from going down thus causing the vehicle to not gain speed. However I explained to him that that is not the case as the floor mat was not touching the…
I was stopped at a red light when I took my foot off of the brake and pressed the accelerator my car stalled out. It took 30 seconds of pressing on the gas for it to begin to move. *tt *tr
Also reported on the 2016 Nissan Altima
Other powertrain problem
CVT failure
Other body or interior problem
Complete transmission failure
Other speed control problem
Other electrical problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 71 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 engine problem happen on the 2016 Nissan Altima?
Across 43 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 55,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 40,000 miles and a quarter after 80,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is other engine problem on the 2016 Nissan Altima?
71 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.2 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