Other powertrain problem on the 2003 Nissan Maxima
1 fire 1 of the 6 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 5 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 other powertrain problem gets reported
There are 6 reports of other powertrain problem on the 2003 Nissan Maxima, 5 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 92,000 miles. It is the 11th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 74,500 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 fire 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 $400–$4,500 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 18 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2017, at a median of 10,000 miles, and latest on the 2009 at 130,000 miles.
By volume the 2004 carries the most reports, with 730; the 2003 has 6. 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.
Loud thud/bump when going over an uneven surface from right front. Had serviced and was advised it was the "bump stop" that was dry. I was also advised that this should have been addressed at each oil change. I reviewed my manual and there is no mention of lubricating the bump stop - ever. In addition, the dealer did not mention the service was done when oil changes were done there.*ak
2003 nissan maxima experienced clutch failure @ 23,000 miles with normal wear. Car has original tires and was driven by an experienced driver. Our experience has been that clutches normally last more then 75,000 miles. This was a $900.00 repair on a two year old car and nissan offered no assistance.*ak
Nissan murano, 2003 with approximately 75,400 miles. August 9, 2008, my daughter and wife were driving the car and called me on my cell phone very excited and unset stating, ?the car won?t accelerate and it is jerking,, what should we do?? I instructed them to park the car until I arrive to check it out I didn?t want them to get onto the major highway in the heavy traffic. I arrived and drove the car home. I parked the car in our garage and didn?t drive it until monday for work. Had no problems that day and drove it to work, both wife and I commute to the same location. After work on this very heavily traveled interstate on our way home I experienced the car hesitating and the RPM gage rived up over 4000 rpms and the car started to lurch and hesitate and had no response from the accelerator. Vehicle started to lose momentum so I exited at the nearest exit. I nursed the car to a parking lot off the main interstate and stop. I called the nissan dealer where I just had the car serviced the week before and explained the problem I was having. I informed the service rep the car would be delivered by a wrecker service to have the car…
Also reported on the 2003 Nissan Maxima
Other engine problem
Other lighting problem
Other electrical problem
Airbag inflator rupture
No-start or intermittent start failure
Engine sensor failure
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 6 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 6 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 powertrain problem happen on the 2003 Nissan Maxima?
Across 5 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 75,000 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 other powertrain problem on the 2003 Nissan Maxima?
6 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.1 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