Airbag failed to deploy in a crash on the 2001 Nissan Pathfinder
3 crashes 2 injuries 5 of the 3 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 2 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 airbag failed to deploy in a crash gets reported
There are 3 reports of airbag failed to deploy in a crash on the 2001 Nissan Pathfinder, 2 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 72,000 miles. It is the 20th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 88,250 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, 3 a crash and 2 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.
Putting it right typically runs $1,000–$5,000 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.
This mode is classified as critical, which means a failure can leave the car unable to stop, steer, or stay out of the way of traffic. It is weighted accordingly in the risk score.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 7 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2014, at a median of 10,000 miles, and latest on the 1998 at 175,000 miles.
By volume the 2013 carries the most reports, with 5; the 2001 has 3. 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.
Fuel/throttle control: I experienced a "sudden unintended acceleration" incident in july of 2002. I was in the process of head in parking and was moving very slowly while applying brakes the vehicle accelerated over curbing into a wall. The vehicle stopped, the engine stopped running, and air bags did not deploy. The vehicle is a 2001 nissan pathfinder with less than 8,000 miles on it. I have read of other incidents like this for this vehicle and am now afraid to drive it. No other incident has occured. I have never experience this situation before and I originally thought that I stepped on the acceletator the same time as the brake. Now I believe I did not step on the accelerator but for some reason the vehicle malfunctioned. I have not taken this into the dealer because I have no confidence in their ability to diagnose the problem as it appears to be very intermittent. This is a serious problem that is potentially lethal and cannot be detected by normal maintenance and happens so quickly that the driver cannot react to avoid a serious collision. There were no injuries (this time) but vehicle damage was $500.
Tl* the contact owns a 2001 nissan pathfinder. The contact stated that while driving 40 MPH, the vehicle crashed into another vehicle. The contact stated that upon impact, the air bags did not deploy and the vehicle was destroyed. The contact sustained injuries to the left rotator cuff and an concussion. The manufacturer was notified and sent someone to look at the vehicle who stated that the crash was not significant enough for the air bags to deploy. The failure mileage was 170,000.
Also reported on the 2001 Nissan Pathfinder
Strut, shock or spring failure
Other body or interior problem
Other electrical problem
Other suspension problem
Other fuel system problem
Other steering problem
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 3 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 3 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 airbag failed to deploy in a crash happen on the 2001 Nissan Pathfinder?
Across 2 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 90,000 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 airbag failed to deploy in a crash on the 2001 Nissan Pathfinder?
3 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