AtWhatMileage
Engine · 7 owner reports

Other engine problem on the 2011 Nissan Maxima

Only 4 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.

Reports of this failure 7
With an odometer reading 4
Reports per 1,000 built 0.3 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 25%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 0
Typical repair $300–$4,000
What it means when it happens High
Rank among this year's problems 5th

When other engine problem gets reported

There are 7 reports of other engine problem on the 2011 Nissan Maxima, 4 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 95,000 miles. It is the 5th most-reported problem on this model year.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 4 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
— — 70,700 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

Putting it right typically runs $300–$4,000 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 20 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 1997, at a median of 20,000 miles, and latest on the 2002 at 110,000 miles.

By volume the 2003 carries the most reports, with 67; the 2011 has 7. 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.

What owners wrote

Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.

Engine started knocking, I took it to the nissan dealer who pulled the oil pan and found pieces of the main crankshaft bearings in the bottom of the oil pan. The car was still driving ok and the knock could not be heard from inside the car. Nissan replaced the short block engine. Had I not noticed the knock and taken it to the dealer the engine would have eventually seized up and could have caused a dangerous driving situation. I bought the car new and had the first oil change at 3100 miles by a nissan dealer and the engine failed at approximately 5700 miles after 4 months of use. *tr

5,700 miles NHTSA complaint 908506 filed 2012-03-06

Tl* the contact owns a 2011 nissan maxima. The contact stated that while driving at approximately 40 MPH, the steering wheel seized. In addition, the vehicle stalled as all the warning lights illuminated. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The failure mileage was 55,400. Mailed out 01/13/15*lj

55,400 miles NHTSA complaint 1141981 filed 2014-12-26

Tl* the contact owns a 2011 nissan maxima. The contact noticed hot air blowing through the vents when the air conditioner was activated. The contact attempted to restart the vehicle more than twice, but the failure still occurred. There were no warning indicators illuminated. The vehicle was taken to sheridan nissan (114 s dupont hwy, new castle, de 19720, (302) 326-6100) where it was diagnosed that the compressor was faulty. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was not informed of the failure. The failure mileage was 86,000. *tt *tr

86,000 miles NHTSA complaint 1477464 filed 2018-06-21

Also reported on the 2011 Nissan Maxima

Complete transmission failure

13 reports median 113k

Other body or interior problem

12 reports median 78k

Sunroof failure or glass breakage

8 reports median 70k

CVT failure

7 reports median 106k

Other electrical problem

7 reports median 66k

How far this goes

This page is kept out of search results because 7 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 7 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 engine problem happen on the 2011 Nissan Maxima?

Across 4 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 70,000 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 engine problem on the 2011 Nissan Maxima?

7 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.3 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