2019 Nissan Leaf: what breaks, and at what mileage

What breaks on the 2019 Nissan Leaf

Owners have reported 51 named failure modes on the 2019 Nissan Leaf, and the three most-reported carry 36% of everything filed.

Other electrical problem leads with 76 reports and about 2.8 per 1,000 vehicles.

Backup camera failure follows with 23 reports.

Other engine problem follows with 18 reports, median 5,000 miles.

By system, the reports fall mostly into electrical (84), infotainment (31) and engine (29).

What happens when these parts fail

Across the named modes, 7 mention a crash, 1 a fire and 7 an injury. Those are the words owners used in their own complaints, and NHTSA does not verify them, but they are the closest thing in this data to a measure of what a failure actually did.

The average severity weight across every report on this year is 3.36, where a stalled engine or a failed airbag weighs many times more than a rattling trim panel, and a figure this high means the reports are dominated by failures with safety consequences rather than annoyances. The weighting is set out in full on the methodology page.

What the top failures cost to put right, as editorial estimates for an independent US shop rather than figures from NHTSA: other electrical problem at $250–$2,000, backup camera failure at $250–$1,200, other engine problem at $300–$4,000 and other powertrain problem at $400–$4,500. Dealer labour, a seized bolt or a part that is no longer made can push any of these past the top of its range.

21% of the reports on this year sit in the engine, transmission, drivetrain or cooling systems — the four where a repair bill is usually four figures.

How often, against how many were built

Scaled by an estimate of how many of these cars exist, the 2019 Nissan Leaf draws about 12 per 1,000 vehicles, which puts it in the 90th percentile of complaint rates among 2019 vehicles we can rate.

That denominator is the weakest number on the page and it is fair to say so plainly. Rate per 1,000 uses a fleet-size estimate derived from recall paperwork for this exact model year. It is a lower bound.

The working figure is 26,713 vehicles. If the true number is twice that, every rate on this page is half what it says; the ranking against other 2019 vehicles, which is what the risk score uses, is far more robust than the rate itself.

Recalls on the 2019 model year

NHTSA has issued 5 recall campaigns covering the 2019 Nissan Leaf, affecting an estimated 72,961 vehicles. A recall is a different kind of evidence from a complaint: it is the regulator and the manufacturer agreeing that something has to be fixed, and the fix is free for as long as the car exists.

The campaigns cover electrical system:propulsion system:traction battery, back over prevention: sensing system: camera, vehicle speed control and visibility:defroster/defogger/hvac system. Whether the work was actually done on the car in front of you is a question only the VIN can answer, and the manufacturer or NHTSA will answer it free.

One caution about reading these together: a recall usually raises the complaint count for the same part, because owners who read about it go and file. The mileages stay informative; the counts get noisy.

Better and worse years of the same car

High risk for a 2019 — 182nd riskiest of the 245 2019 vehicles we can rate. Every score on this site is a rank inside its own model year, which is what makes a 2004 and a 2019 comparable at all.

Across the 13 model years of this car that carry enough reports to score, 2011 comes out best at 68 and 2018 worst at 78, with 2019 itself at 73.

If the model year is negotiable, 2011 and 2014 score lower than 2019 by a margin worth acting on. Same body, same engines, different luck — usually a supplier change or a mid-cycle fix, which the complaint data can show but never explain.

Within the 2018–2023 generation specifically, 2021 is the strongest year at 71 and 2018 the weakest at 78.

The limits of complaint data

323 owner reports; fleet size estimated from this year's own recall paperwork. Every count on this page is therefore a floor: it is the number of owners who went to the trouble of filing with a federal agency, which is a small and self-selected fraction of the owners who had the fault.

Of those 323 reports, 57 carried an odometer reading, so the mileages here describe 18% of the sample rather than all of it. Owners also round: readings pile up on multiples of ten thousand, which is why this site publishes "about 90,000 miles" and not "91,438".

The failure modes are assigned by software reading the owner's own words, which is accurate in bulk and wrong in individual cases. A mode with a handful of reports may contain a misfiled one.

And nothing here predicts what one car will do. These are other people's complaints, filed years apart, on cars maintained by strangers. Read the page as a map of where this model year has previously gone wrong, then have the specific car in front of you inspected.