2025 Nissan Leaf: what breaks, and at what mileage
What breaks on the 2025 Nissan Leaf
On the 2025 Nissan Leaf, the failure owners report most often is other driver assistance problem, with 2 reports on file. Across every failure mode on this year, half the dated reports were filed before 125,000 miles.
What owners report breaking
Owners have reported 7 named failure modes on the 2025 Nissan Leaf, and the three most-reported carry 40% of everything filed.
Other driver assistance problem leads with 2 reports and about 0.1 per 1,000 vehicles.
CVT failure follows with 1 report, median 125,000 miles.
Wheel bearing or hub failure follows with 1 report.
By system, the reports fall mostly into adas (3), transmission (1) and drivetrain (1).
At what mileage it happens
Too few of the reports on this year carry an odometer reading to describe the timing: 1 of them do. The mileages quoted elsewhere on this page come from the modes that have enough of them.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
How reports accumulate
Every report with an odometer reading, cumulative, from 0 to 200,000 miles. A curve that climbs early is a car with early problems, whatever its total.
- Line share of reports filed by that mileage
How bad it is when it goes
Nothing in the reports on the 2025 Nissan Leaf mentions a crash, a fire or an injury. That is the ordinary case and it is worth stating: most defect complaints are about a car that stopped working, not one that hurt somebody.
The average severity weight across every report on this year is 3.80, 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 driver assistance problem at $250–$1,800, CVT failure at $3,000–$8,500, wheel bearing or hub failure at $350–$1,200 and door latch or handle failure at $250–$1,200. Dealer labour, a seized bolt or a part that is no longer made can push any of these past the top of its range.
20% 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.
Every reported failure mode
| Failure mode | System | Reports | With reading | 25th | Median | 75th | Per 1,000 | Typical repair | Severity |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Other driver assistance problem | adas | 2 | 0 | — | — | — | 0.1 | $250–$1,800 | High |
| CVT failure | transmission | 1 | 1 | — | 123k | — | 0.0 | $3,000–$8,500 | Critical |
| Wheel bearing or hub failure | drivetrain | 1 | 0 | — | — | — | 0.0 | $350–$1,200 | Moderate |
| Door latch or handle failure | body | 1 | 0 | — | — | — | 0.0 | $250–$1,200 | High |
| Software fault or failed update | software | 1 | 0 | — | — | — | 0.0 | $0–$600 | Moderate |
| Other wheel or tire problem | wheels | 1 | 0 | — | — | — | 0.0 | $200–$1,500 | High |
| Other speed control problem | adas | 1 | 0 | — | — | — | 0.0 | $250–$2,000 | Critical |
| Unclassified problem | other | 2 | 0 | — | — | — | 0.1 | — | Moderate |
This year had no usable recall paperwork, so the fleet-size estimate is the median of other years of the same model. Repair costs are typical independent-shop ranges for the failure, not figures from these reports.
How often, against how many were built
Scaled by an estimate of how many of these cars exist, the 2025 Nissan Leaf draws about 0.4 per 1,000 vehicles, which puts it in the 73rd percentile of complaint rates among 2025 vehicles we can rate.
That denominator is the weakest number on the page and it is fair to say so plainly. This year had no usable recall paperwork, so the fleet-size estimate is the median of other years of the same model.
The working figure is 22,791 vehicles. If the true number is twice that, every rate on this page is half what it says; the ranking against other 2025 vehicles, which is what the risk score uses, is far more robust than the rate itself.
How 2025 compares with the other years
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.
Scores compare each year against other cars of the same model year, so a low number on an older car is a real result and not an artefact of age.
Shorter is better. Years with too few reports to score are shown without a bar rather than as a zero, because no data is not good news.
The limits of complaint data
10 owner reports; fleet size borrowed from other years of the same model. 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 10 reports, 1 carried an odometer reading, so the mileages here describe 10% 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".
Named failure modes come from matching phrases in the complaint text, so a badly worded complaint can land in the wrong bucket. The effect washes out across hundreds of reports and does not wash out across five.
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.
Questions this page answers
What are the most common problems with the 2025 Nissan Leaf?
The most-reported failures are other driver assistance problem (2 reports), cvt failure (1 report, median 125,000 miles) and wheel bearing or hub failure (1 report). Counts come from owner complaints filed with NHTSA, which are voluntary, so they show what owners bothered to report rather than every fault that occurred.
Where this comes from. Every figure above is computed from NHTSA owner complaints and recall records for this exact make, model and year. Complaints are voluntary and self-selected, so treat counts as a floor. The methodology page writes out each formula, and the same numbers are available as JSON.
What breaks at my mileage Compare with another car
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