What ownership is like, what breaks at what mileage, what the repairs cost, and what to check before you buy one.
← All Nissan Altima generations
NHTSA complaints per catalog listing run from 21.75 for 1999 (87 complaints across 4 listings) to 79.50 for 2001 (159 across 2), against a generation median of 47.17. The highest year, 2001, is 1.7 times that median. No year reaches the 2.0x our rule needs together with an above-median ad share and 30 or more listings, so nothing is flagged. Our catalog holds very few cars of these years, so a complaints-per-listing figure is mostly a small-denominator artifact and our rule cannot fairly flag them. Read the raw complaint counts, not the rate.
| Miles | Item | Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| not stated by the sources | Engine and engine cooling complaints | No sourced repair price for this generation. | Engine and cooling is the top component in our NHTSA pull for 1998-2001 Altimas. We found no third-party source that prices a specific repair or gives a mileage window, so we do not invent one. Check coolant condition, hose and radiator leaks, and run a hot idle. |
| any | Recalls on file: Firestone Firehawk GTA-02 tires (01V065000, 2000-2001 cars with that tire) | Free at a Nissan dealer when open | A tire recall concerns the tire, not the car; most surviving cars will have had tires replaced since. Confirm by VIN and read the tire date code. |
No year in this generation was flagged. A year is flagged by our rule only when all three hold: (1) its NHTSA complaints per catalog listing is at least 2.0x the median for its generation, (2) the share of ads that mention a problem is above the generation median, and (3) we track at least 30 listings for that year. The cutoff was fixed before we looked. Ad mentions are not failures, and a flag is a reason to inspect harder, not a verdict on any one car. We also re-ran the ad test with the 'rust' flaw left out, because the ad reader counts phrases like 'no rust' as mentions, and publish a flag only if it passes both ways.
| Year | Complaints | Top components | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1998 | 123 | Air Bags, Electrical System, Fuel System, Gasoline | |
| 1999 | 87 | Tires, Service Brakes, Hydraulic, Air Bags | |
| 2000 | 160 | Engine And Engine Cooling, Tires, Electrical System | |
| 2001 | 159 | Engine And Engine Cooling, Electrical System, Suspension |
source: NHTSA complaints database (api.nhtsa.gov). Complaints are owner reports, not confirmed failures.
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We don't tell you to skip a year; we flag by a fixed rule, and it flags 2009 and 2019. 2009 has 13.68 NHTSA complaints per catalog listing (1,601 complaints across 117 listings) against a 2007-2012 median of 5.25. Third-party lists most often name 2002 (24/7 Wall St) and the CVT years. 2002 has 1,047 complaints across 7 listings in our NHTSA pull, but only 7 catalog listings, so the rule cannot flag it. 2013 has 2,314 complaints across 325 listings, the most of any year.
CoverageX puts it at about $4,800 to $5,500 at a Nissan dealer. DMV JDM Depot gives a wider $1,500 to $8,000, and I-90 Nissan says $5,000 to $8,000+ for a remanufactured unit. One 2015 owner reported a $5,900 AAMCO quote at 202k miles. These are search-result snippets, not full-page reads.
Yes. Nissan's May 2020 bulletin extends the CVT warranty on 2013-2016 Altimas from 60 months/60,000 miles to 84 months/84,000 miles, and its May 2023 bulletin does the same for 2017-2018 Altimas. Both say owners who opted out of the class action may not be covered, so check the VIN with a Nissan dealer. Coverage is measured from the original in-service date, so many of these cars are now past it.
CarComplaints counts 131 catalytic converter failure complaints for the 2002 model year, with an average repair of $2,360 at 102,500 miles. RepairPal's average for an Altima converter is $1,577 to $1,682. Go-Parts warns a new converter will not clear a P0420 code if the cause is an oxygen sensor or exhaust leak. These are snippet reads.
We don't rank reliability. The 2019-present generation has the lowest complaints per listing in our data (median 0.29 against 2.00 for 2013-2018), but newer cars have had less time to collect complaints, so that partly reflects age.
NHTSA lists the 2007-2011 Altima Hybrid under its own name. We merged its complaints into the Altima counts and did not analyze it separately.