CVT failure on the 2011 Nissan Rogue
1 fire 1 of the 62 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 cvt failure gets reported
Owners of the 2011 Nissan Rogue report CVT failure at a median of 90,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 57,500 miles and a quarter after 110,000 miles, from 50 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 90,000 miles. It is the 2nd most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 27,500 miles at the tenth percentile to 132,500 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 105,603 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.
14% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27,197 miles | 58,606 miles | 88,750 miles | 108,750 miles | 132,800 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, 1 a fire is 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 $3,000–$8,500 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 12 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2023, at a median of 35,000 miles, and latest on the 2009 at 100,000 miles.
By volume the 2013 carries the most reports, with 121; the 2011 has 62. 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.
On july 5th 2012 our recently purchased (from carmax) nissan rogue sv AWD was taken in to carmax (where car was purchased) in raleigh nc for unidentifiable noise where we were told the transmission seals were leaking. The transmission seals were replaced by the nissan dealership in raleigh nc. July 27th, 2012 we noticed an odd whining/grinding when driving at low speeds and then when the accelerator was depressed. The whining/grinding became worse over the next week. On august 6th 2012 the vehicle was taken to the nissan dealership and we were told the transmission seals were bad again and that the CVT transmission needed to be replaced. The transmission was ordered on the 6th of august and on the 13th of august we were notified by the dealership that the nissan CVT transmissions are on back order and the back order is not scheduled to release until the 17th of august. *tr
For a few days I had noticed a shutter in my car as it accelerated. Really since I had bought the car it had vibration problems. I was driving about 65 MPH on the freeway and got on a ramp to merge onto another freeway. When I slowed to merge into traffic, I could not accelerate when pressing the gas pedal all the way to the floor. The RPM gauge went up to around 4,000 but the speed of the vehicle would not go above 15 - 20 MPH. Because of this, I almost got hit by a truck that was in the distance of the stright lane that I merged into. I pulled in front of him but could not go anywhere and he was forced to make a quick swerve into another lane to avoid me. The internet is full of videos and complaints from other nissan rogue owners that are havin the exact same problems. My car does have a lot of mileage as I travel about 1,200 miles per week for my job as a territory manager. However, that only means that all this mileage is highway miles and has not put much pressure on the transmission. The other owners are experiencing the same issue at anywhere from 6,000 to 60,000 miles. Nissan has doubled their warranties on the CVT…
The 2011 rogue is the car we use for longer trips when we're not flying. About two hours into a long interstate trip in may 2013 we started to hear a high pitched whine from the transmission whenever we would accelerate to go uphill or pass another vehicle. Shortly after we started hearing that noise the transmission was unable to "downshift" (technically cvts don't downshift) and we lost power. We could still maintain a reasonable speed on level terrain, but we were barely able to maintain speed going over small hills. We would have our foot planted on the accelerator but nothing would happen, acceleration wise. Once we'd stop, turn the car off, wait a few minutes, then start the car and get back to driving, everything would be fine. But after a while of extended driving the problem would return. This issue has shown up a few time since then but always during extended driving sessions and never on the day-to-day short commutes, which has made it frustrating to track. In doing a simple google search we found many other rogue owners describing our exact same symptoms, and even someone that posted a youtube video during their…
Also reported on the 2011 Nissan Rogue
Other powertrain problem
Complete transmission failure
Other electrical problem
Other engine problem
Other speed control problem
Airbag warning light or occupant sensor fault
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 62 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 cvt failure happen on the 2011 Nissan Rogue?
Across 50 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 90,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 57,500 miles and a quarter after 110,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is cvt failure on the 2011 Nissan Rogue?
62 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.9 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