Complete transmission failure on the 2014 Nissan Pathfinder
3 crashes 1 injury 4 of the 39 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.
When complete transmission failure gets reported
Owners of the 2014 Nissan Pathfinder report complete transmission failure at a median of 5,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 5,000 miles and a quarter after 40,000 miles, from 23 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 98,000 miles. It is the 5th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 200 miles at the tenth percentile to 90,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 89,372 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.
65% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 228 miles | 2,950 miles | 3,696 miles | 38,400 miles | 89,600 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 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 $2,800–$8,000 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 9 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2014, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 2007 at 140,000 miles.
By volume the 2013 carries the most reports, with 51; the 2014 has 39. 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 two 2014 nissan pathfinders on october 2013 from sheehy nissan of annapolis. After 1500 miles on one of them started hearing a noise from the left driver's side area only when going over 55mph. Took to dealership tech heard the same problem but was not sure what was causing the noise. After a week pasted someone from nissan came down to look at the truck at this point I told dealer I no longer wanted truck and that I would like another new vehicle in its place and did not mind paying a few dollars more for and upgraded model. So the gm came back with some good numbers and off the lot I went with another brand new 2014 fully loaded pathfinder on march 8th 2014 I started feeling this very hard shuddering when driving 0-20mph I thought it would stop but it just got worst so on march 10th 2014 I dropped truck off at the dealership for service and tech was able to hear and feel what I felt and they placed a called to nissan which advised them to replace the transmission and that it would take a week. When I went to pick up the truck on friday march 14th 2014 they pulled it into the bay I got in the drivers set started the…
Spent $42,000+ when we bought the '14 pathfinder platinum w/premium pkge on 03/06/14 and it started the "shudder" on 03/19/14. After coming to a complete stop, upon re-acceleration, it would shudder when I hit 20 MPH. It felt like the vehicle was fighting against me to speed up. I took it back to the dealership and after looking at it they are putting a whole new transmission in it. After reading several reviews online (edmonds, kbb, etc), this transmission shuddering at 20 MPH is a frightfully common problem. *tr
Tl* the contact owns a 2014 nissan pathfinder. After locking the motorized rear lift gate and placing the vehicle into drive, the lift gate lifted independently and struck a concrete pillar. The contact did not hear the lift gate warning chime during the failure. The manufacturer was notified of the lift gate failure. While driving between 10-30 MPH, the transmission failed and prevented the vehicle from accelerating. The manufacturer was not notified of the transmission failure. The vehicle was not repaired. The failure mileage was 2,900.
Also reported on the 2014 Nissan Pathfinder
Other powertrain problem
CVT failure
Other visibility problem
Other body or interior problem
Airbag warning light or occupant sensor fault
Other engine problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 39 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 complete transmission failure happen on the 2014 Nissan Pathfinder?
Across 23 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 5,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 5,000 miles and a quarter after 40,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is complete transmission failure on the 2014 Nissan Pathfinder?
39 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.4 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