Other brake problem on the 2015 Nissan Leaf
5 crashes 1 injury 6 of the 42 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 2015 Nissan Leaf report other brake problem at a median of 32,500 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 17,500 miles and a quarter after 37,500 miles, from 30 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 88,000 miles. It is the 1st most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 5,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 50,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 47,297 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.
67% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3,803 miles | 16,590 miles | 32,307 miles | 37,225 miles | 51,100 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 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–$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 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.
The brakes did not respond as normal on a cold snowy day. The tires did not slide and it was not a hard braking situation. Multiple times throughout the day, the brakes were not engaging properly. The condition went away the next day; a warmer day. It happened again 2 weeks later and I can now recognize the problem and be cautious.
Whenever we come to a stop for a traffic light or a stop sign, and the speed of the car is < 3 miles , we noticed that when we apply brakes, they do not get applied immediately. There is a sudden surge in acceleration before the car comes to a complete stop. This is very noticeable especially when we apply brakes to slow the car before a traffic signal or stop sign and also in bumper to bumper traffic conditions. As a result, we tend to stop the car atleast couple of meters before the stop line or the car in front to buffer the acceleration by the car. Thank you *tr
It was early morning of nov 13 friday around 5:30 am, I was about to leave the house to work. I backed up the car about 10-15 ft away from original parking position and stopped because I forgot something in the house. At that time my foot was still on break pedal however, as soon as I changed to drive mode, the car move forward quickly even though my foot was on the break pedal. I pressed harder on the pedal to stopped the car unfortunately, the car immediately hit the filing cabinet, shoe rack and penetrated the house wall. It was a terrifying experience for me. My husband arrived home couple of hours later. He assessed the car and came into conclusion that the break pedal is totally reaching the floor. We immediately notified our insurance company on the same day.
Also reported on the 2015 Nissan Leaf
Loss of braking
Parking brake failure
ABS module or sensor failure
Other electrical problem
Other speed control problem
Other engine problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 42 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 2015 Nissan Leaf?
Across 30 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 32,500 miles. A quarter were filed before 17,500 miles and a quarter after 37,500 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 2015 Nissan Leaf?
42 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.7 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