Radiator or coolant leak on the 1999 Nissan Maxima
1 crash 1 of the 4 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.
Only 3 reports for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.
When radiator or coolant leak gets reported
There are 4 reports of radiator or coolant leak on the 1999 Nissan Maxima, 3 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 98,000 miles. It is the 11th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 100,000 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 is 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 $350–$1,900 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 8 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2017, at a median of 30,000 miles, and latest on the 1998 at 150,000 miles.
By volume the 2000 carries the most reports, with 18; the 1999 has 4. 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 in a front impact accident going approximately 15-30 MPH. The person I rear ended was stationary and his air bag deployed. My airbag did not deploy. The damage to my car was extensive causing the hood to fold into an inverted "v" smashing in the radiator etc. I was very concerned that my airbag did not deploy. I was not injured in the accident. *jb
I am a nissan technician, and I have become concerned with the amount of fourth generation (1995-1999) maximas I have seen with substantial radiator support rust. This of course creates a dangerous situation with the crossmember, which attaches to the support to form the lower engine cradle. In many instances, the rust gets so bad the crossmember drops and causes a very real danger for drivers, and others -- if the crossmember were to get caught on the edge of a nasty pothole as the car goes over, an accident is guaranteed. The easy way to fix it is to bring these cars back, and just section in a piece of good steel, tap it, and bolt the crossmember back up, and undercoat the repaired area. This issue can be rectified, and many cars can be saved from the scrap heap, for this problem is enough to render an otherwise trouble-free car unfit for the road. I hope this issue is considered, and acted upon by NHTSA & nissan, since it occurs only in conditions of high salt\calcium winter roads. I am not aware of this issue occurring outside of what is termed the rust belt - so its not as if an exorbitant number of cars would require…
Garage-kept since new 1999 nissan maxima has developed severe rust/body rot in the "radiator support member" which also attaches front engine mount points. This damage was caught during an oil change when the protective plastic shield was removed - which exposed the degree of danger. Inattentive owners could miss this entirely and the engine could literally rip from the car over severe bumps! Be sure to check under your radiator! *tr
Also reported on the 1999 Nissan Maxima
Misfire or rough idle
Other electrical problem
Other engine problem
Control module (ECM/PCM/BCM) failure
No-start or intermittent start failure
Alternator or charging system failure
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 4 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.
Complaints are voluntary, so 4 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 radiator or coolant leak happen on the 1999 Nissan Maxima?
Across 3 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 100,000 miles. A quarter were filed before — and a quarter after —. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is radiator or coolant leak on the 1999 Nissan Maxima?
4 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 23 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