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 0.04 for 2026 (1 complaints across 23 listings) to 1.45 for 2019 (234 across 161), against a generation median of 0.29. The highest year, 2019, is 5.0 times that median. Flagged by our rule: 2019. Caution on the flags: most years in this generation are young and have had little time to collect complaints, so the generation median is very low and the 2x test is easy to pass. A flag here marks a year worth inspecting, not a pattern like 2009 and the 2013-2014 cars show.
| Miles | Item | Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| any | Tie rod, steering rack bolts, fuel pump retainer, tire and rear camera recalls | Free at a Nissan dealer when open | NHTSA recalls 21V138000 (2020-2021 tie rod ball joint), 23V882000 (2024 steering), 18V922000 and 19V316000 (2019 fuel pump), 21V169000 and 20V685000 (tires), 23V628000 (2019-2021 rear camera). Confirm each by VIN. Newer cars have had less time to collect complaints, so low counts do not mean fewer problems per car. |
| not stated by the sources | CVT on 2019 and newer cars | CoverageX gives about $4,800 to $5,500 at a Nissan dealer for an Altima CVT, an all-years figure. | CoverageX says 2019 and newer models have far fewer complaints than the earlier CVT cars but are not problem-free. Our NHTSA pull supports the lower complaint volume; it cannot say how the CVTs will age. The extension bulletins we read do not list these years. |
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.
Complaints add up over a car's whole life, so older years in a generation can look worse here than they are. Read this flag next to the complaint details below.
| Year | Complaints | Top components | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 234 | Electrical System, Unknown Or Other, Engine | |
| 2020 | 182 | Electrical System, Unknown Or Other, Engine | |
| 2021 | 70 | Service Brakes,forward Collision Avoidance, Electrical... | |
| 2022 | 20 | Unknown Or Other, Service Brakes,forward Collision... | |
| 2023 | 30 | Electrical System, Engine, Unknown Or Other | |
| 2024 | 41 | Unknown Or Other, Structure, Back Over Prevention | |
| 2025 | 7 | Service Brakes, Hydraulic,service Brakes, Air, Power... | |
| 2026 | 1 | Electrical System,lane Departure |
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.