Other speed control problem on the 2003 Nissan Pathfinder
2 crashes 1 fire 1 injury 4 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 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.
When other speed control problem gets reported
There are 4 reports of other speed control problem on the 2003 Nissan Pathfinder, 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 78,000 miles. It is the 17th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 1,943 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, 2 a crash, 1 a fire and 1 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 $250–$2,000 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 16 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2003, at a median of 1,900 miles, and latest on the 2002 at 165,000 miles.
By volume the 2013 carries the most reports, with 27; the 2003 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.
Unintended acceleration at red light and in parking lot. Low brake pedal when applied, foot hits gas pedal while braking. This is a very dangerous problem that other pathfinder owners reported. *nlm
I noticed after I had stopped car and turned it off that I was not as close to curb as I wanted to be. I restarted vehicle and pulled forward appriximately 1 - 1 1/2 car lengths. Put vehicle into reverse to slowly back up when the car suddenly and unexpectedly began to rev at an exceeding high RPM rate and rapidly accelerated. Attempt to break and stop the vehicle was futile resulting in my vehicle hitting the front of the vehicle that was parked behind me. Other vehicle was unoccupied. I do not trust this vehicle because of this erratic behavior. I drove it home carefully and then had it towed to dealer where it was purchased at the end of april 2003. According to service dept. At dealer, they checked for trouble codes and no codes are stored. They road tested vehicle and vehicle is operating normal. They called nissan tech line and there is no record of incidents like this. Printout of test indicates "no dtc detected. Further testing may be required. Dealer will not do additional testing - this will require nissan input. Nissan customer service rep denies any knowledge of other reported instances of rapid acceleration in 2003…
While traveling at a speed of less than 30 MPH in the left turn lane I heard a loud grinding noise that felt like the gears stuck. The car then suddenly and without warning, revved up,speed forward with the steering wheel locked to the right. The steering and brakes were non responsive, and I had no control. My car, at a high rate of speed, crossed three additional lanes striking a telephone pole(actually split the pole in 2 places), transformer, fire hydrant, and finally rolling down a hill where it came to rest in a parking lot. There was fire from the power lines touchin and water gushing from the fire hydrant at the same time. My father was two cars ahead of me and witnessed the entire accident. We had just left from getting the annual emissions checked on our vehicles and had traveled less than a mile towards home, when the accident occurred. I was told by the paramedics that they never saw anyone walk away from an accident this severe. I suffered whiplash, minor cuts and a 2nd degree concussion but this malfunction could have resulted in the death of me or someone else. *tr
Also reported on the 2003 Nissan Pathfinder
Strut, shock or spring failure
Catalytic converter failure
Exhaust leak or fumes in the cabin
Other engine problem
Other brake problem
Brake line, hose or caliper 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 other speed control problem happen on the 2003 Nissan Pathfinder?
Across 4 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 1,900 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 speed control problem on the 2003 Nissan Pathfinder?
4 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