Seat belt or retractor failure on the 2017 Nissan Versa
3 crashes 3 of the 12 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 seat belt or retractor failure gets reported
Owners of the 2017 Nissan Versa report seat belt or retractor failure at a median of 5,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 100 miles and a quarter after 30,000 miles, from 9 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 82,000 miles. It is the 1st most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 45 miles at the tenth percentile to 30,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 32,180 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
Reports bunched into a band this tight usually mean the component has a life of its own: it goes at roughly the same mileage regardless of who owns it.
100% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 45 miles | 64 miles | 3,000 miles | 32,225 miles | 32,225 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 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 $200–$900 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 8 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2017, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 2008 at 75,000 miles.
By volume the 2007 carries the most reports, with 17; the 2017 has 12. 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.
I bought a brand new 2017 nissan versa note. Drove it straight home. Opened the hatch and saw the passingers rear seat latch was unlocked. Tipped seat forward and found the seat belt was stuck in the lach and damaged. The dealer was notified and he said they will replace the seat belt. But that will not stop it from happening. The seat belt hangs loose and needs to have some sort of holder to keep it firm against the side panel to avoid the seat belt falling into the latch area and getting stuck in the latch and causing the seat not to latch and damaging the seat belt. The dealer said he looked at an identical vehicle on the lot and found that vehicle had same exact issue and damaged that seat belt too. He said at this time there is no solution to the problem. There are small notches in the side panel that appear might be for a bracket or some type of strap. But the dealer said there is nothing available and has no idea what those notches are for. This is a safety issue that needs immediate attention. The seat will not latch if belt is jammed in it and it is damaging the seat belts. I can only guess how many seat belts consumers…
I purchased my 2017 nissan versa in september 11th, 2017. Within 2 weeks, I began having brake issues. The car would screech when slowing down and make almost a grinding sound when making a hard brake. I took it to the dealer who I purchased the car from (abc nissan) and they twice refused to fix it. Than I drove across town to another dealer (midway nissan) who admitted that it was a known defect and said it simply needed more grease. About a week after being fixed, the problem continued. Two weeks later, I was on the freeway and attempting to slow down to stopped traffic when the brakes locked up and would not allow me to stop. I attempted to steer in the direction of the side lane, but was unable to avoid the collision with the car in front of me. The airbags immediately deployed and although no serious injuries occurred, I found that some papers I had in the car had somehow been torn. Although I was wearing a seat belt, my seat belt was nowhere to be found. I am glad I am alive and I am thankful that I was not injured (other than very minor knee injury) but I feel that both the brakes and the air bags present significant…
I purchased my 2017 nissan versa in september 11th, 2017. Within 2 weeks, I began having brake issues. The car would screech when slowing down and make almost a grinding sound when making a hard brake. I took it to the dealer who I purchased the car from (abc nissan) and they twice refused to fix it. Than I drove across town to another dealer (midway nissan) who admitted that it was a known defect and said it simply needed more grease. About a week after being fixed, the problem continued. Two weeks later, I was on the freeway and attempting to slow down to stopped traffic when the brakes locked up and would not allow me to stop. I attempted to steer in the direction of the side lane, but was unable to avoid the collision with the car in front of me. The airbags immediately deployed and although no serious injuries occurred, I found that some papers I had in the car had somehow been torn. Although I was wearing a seat belt, my seat belt was nowhere to be found. I am glad I am alive and I am thankful that I was not injured (other than very minor knee injury) but I feel that both the brakes and the air bags present significant…
Also reported on the 2017 Nissan Versa
Other brake problem
No-start or intermittent start failure
Complete transmission failure
Control module (ECM/PCM/BCM) failure
Other electrical problem
Other body or interior problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 12 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 seat belt or retractor failure happen on the 2017 Nissan Versa?
Across 9 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 5,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 100 miles and a quarter after 30,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is seat belt or retractor failure on the 2017 Nissan Versa?
12 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