Other brake problem on the 2011 Nissan Leaf
2 crashes 2 injuries 4 of the 19 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 brake problem gets reported
Owners of the 2011 Nissan Leaf report other brake problem at a median of 5,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 5,000 miles and a quarter after 30,000 miles, from 19 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 88,000 miles. It is the 2nd most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 1,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 40,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 41,052 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
A window that narrow is the signature of a part that fails on its own schedule rather than on how the car is driven — which is usually a design or supplier problem rather than wear and tear.
84% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 960 miles | 3,425 miles | 7,000 miles | 27,750 miles | 42,012 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, 2 a crash and 2 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–$1,800 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 9 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2011, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 2022 at 110,000 miles.
By volume the 2015 carries the most reports, with 42; the 2011 has 19. 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 was accelerating after getting on the freeway heading north and slightly uphill I might have been peaking at 55mph when the truck in front of me suddenly slammed his brakes on. I did the same and I hear my tires screeching , I presumed that they were locking. However I did maintain my direction and didn't seem to loose control. When I realized I would not rear-end the truck I left my foot off the brake. I was alarmed when my tires were still locked and remained locked for what I thought was a very long half second. By that time I think I was under 20 MPH on a freeway and I was darn lucky nobody was rear-ending me! I think this is a defect in the braking response. *tr
When driving at 60 MPH down the freeway, I hit the brakes hard to avoid a collision with the car in front of me. I decelerated to about 30mph while veering to the right to avoid hitting the other car. To inform the rapidly approaching car behind me, I tapped my brakes about 4-5 times a second to flash my taillights. At that point the brakes locked up and my car rapidly decelerated even though I had removed my foot from the brake pedal. After about 1/3-1/2 second, the brakes released and I was able to regain control of the car and continue driving. After checking online forums and my local ev group, it turns out that two other people have experienced similar braking behavior where the car decelerated rapidly even though the brake pedal was not pressed.
I was on the freeway traveling appropriately 65 MPH. The vehicle to the right and in front of me suddenly swerved in to my lane and braked hard in front of me. With no place to go on either side of me, I was forced to brake fast and hard. The ABS kicked in as expected but once I had decelerated to a point where I knew a collision was not imminent and took my foot off the brake, the car continued breaking very hard. It took the better part of a second with my foot now completely off the brake before the brakes actually released. In this time, the car behind me was not able to stop and hit me hard, causing injury to two people in the car who were not belted in. This accident would have been avoidable if the leaf had not failed to decrease the braking effort when I released pressure and then ultimately took my foot completely off the brake pedal. It felt as if something like the brake assist function was malfunctioning... *tr
Also reported on the 2011 Nissan Leaf
Other electrical problem
Airbag warning light or occupant sensor fault
Other body or interior problem
Software fault or failed update
Other fuel system problem
Other speed control problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 19 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 brake problem happen on the 2011 Nissan Leaf?
Across 19 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 5,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 5,000 miles and a quarter after 30,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is other brake problem on the 2011 Nissan Leaf?
19 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.8 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