Unclassified problem on the 2005 Nissan Maxima
5 crashes 5 injuries 10 of the 29 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 20 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 unclassified problem gets reported
Owners of the 2005 Nissan Maxima report unclassified problem at a median of 105,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 80,000 miles and a quarter after 115,000 miles, from 20 reports that carried an odometer reading.
It is the 54th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 1,800 miles at the tenth percentile to 160,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 159,096 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
When the reports scatter this far, the mileage is telling you about how these cars were driven more than about the part itself.
20% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1,804 miles | 82,250 miles | 104,000 miles | 115,250 miles | 160,900 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 5 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.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 22 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2013, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 2002 at 115,000 miles.
By volume the 2009 carries the most reports, with 39; the 2005 has 29. 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.
Purchased 2005 maxima and have had it back to the dealer six times for the same vibrating and shimmying problem that everyone seems to complain about. If I had only seen this website before I bought one! The dealership tries they're best to blame the tires/wheels. They have now put 5 sets of tire and wheels on my brand new car...the only person there that is truthful was the service manager. I took him for a ride in the car and finally, he said, this is a characteristic of the car...they wish nissan would fix it. He said maybe 1 out of 25 people actually complain about it. I find that hard to believe. I have am filing a lemon law suit and hope for the best. When will nissan have a recall and fix this problem?
Tl* the contact owns a 2005 nissan maxima. The contact stated while driving 60 MPH the contact lost control over the vehicle and went airborne and crashed into a ditch, destroying the vehicle. During the crash only the passenger side curtain airbag deployed. The contact stated none of the frontal air bags deployed. The contact suffered injuries to the head and shoulder. The contact stated if the air bag deployed the head injury could have been avoided. The contact had not called the manufacturer at the time of the complaint. The failure mileage was 108,000.
Tl* the contact owns 2005 nissan maxima. The contact stated that while driving 25 MPH, the vehicle stopped accelerating. The traction control systems slip light also began to illuminate on the instrument panel. The vehicle was not yet taken to have the failure diagnosed or repaired. The failure and current mileages were 91,000.
Also reported on the 2005 Nissan Maxima
Other powertrain problem
Complete transmission failure
Other engine problem
Transmission slipping
Other body or interior problem
Timing chain, belt or tensioner failure
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 29 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 29 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 unclassified problem happen on the 2005 Nissan Maxima?
Across 20 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 105,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 80,000 miles and a quarter after 115,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is unclassified problem on the 2005 Nissan Maxima?
29 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.8 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