Overheating on the 2012 Nissan Rogue
When overheating gets reported
Owners of the 2012 Nissan Rogue report overheating at a median of 95,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 80,000 miles and a quarter after 100,000 miles, from 12 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 102,000 miles. It is the 8th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 70,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 100,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 31,900 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
A window that narrow is the signature of a part that fails on its own schedule rather than on how the car is driven — which is usually a design or supplier problem rather than wear and tear.
0% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 70,000 miles | 79,000 miles | 94,000 miles | 98,000 miles | 101,900 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 $400–$3,500 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.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 11 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2017, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 2021 at 110,000 miles.
By volume the 2013 carries the most reports, with 34; the 2012 has 16. 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.
When driving the CVT transmission will overheat and lose all power, usually while you are driving on the freeway for a time frame of 20 minutes to an hour or so into your trip, which really sucks in heavy traffic because you can't do anything but hope you get to the safety of the side before you are smashed by an 18 wheeler or any other vehicle which could cause a serious accident. Nissan knows of this and will not recall these transmissions my vehicle is only 3 or 4 years old and I will not take it on trips over 50 miles or so. I have noticed many people have this issue and nissan will not fix it they actually lessened the warranty in 2010 from 10 yrs 120,000 mile to 5 yr 60,000 without really addressing the issue! Nissan has lost my respect and will not purchase another unless this issue is taken care off through a massive recall!
I was driving my car on a highway with speed limits of 70 miles per hour as I was going up an incline my car wouldn't accelerate past the speed I was going. Once I made it over the incline I was able to accelerate again. We were then entering the exit ramp and my car just quit. My husband told me to put the car in park and start the engine- it then started up and we were able to exit the ramp, but the car had little acceleration so we turned off the air conditioning and that seemed to help. On our way back home my husband drove the car on the highway and after driving a while the car lost acceleration again. We shut off the air conditioner and then it was ok. We took the car a nissan dealership and was told that they needed to add an aulxillary transmission cooler to the transmission so it would not overheat. Also they had to replace ransmission valve body. I had them do the repair at a cost to me if of $1,013.00. Nissan would only pay $750.00 to the cost. I told the rep at nissan that we had no warning of the transmission going , no warning lights came on it just stopped. I told the this was a huge safety issue - this could of…
After about an hour of highway driving, the car will stop accelerating. The car was taken to the nissan dealership today, 10/18/19, where the mechanic told us that the "transmission was overheating". They could not tell us what was causing it want install an additional piece of equipment that will provide a temporary fix. This is an extremely dangerous and scary situation; there needs to be a recall. *tr
Also reported on the 2012 Nissan Rogue
CVT failure
Other powertrain problem
Complete transmission failure
Other electrical problem
Other speed control problem
Other engine problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 16 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 overheating happen on the 2012 Nissan Rogue?
Across 12 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 95,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 80,000 miles and a quarter after 100,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is overheating on the 2012 Nissan Rogue?
16 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.2 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