2011 Nissan Leaf problems
NHTSA has received 117 complaints about the 2011 Nissan Leaf, and 30% of them involve air bags. Next are electrical system (25%) and brakes (19%).
At a glance
- Complaints
- 117 filed with NHTSA
- Most reported
- Air bags 30% of complaints
- Crashes and fires
- 7 and 0
- Injuries and deaths
- 7 and 0
- Typical mileage
- 30,000 miles 91 complaints with mileage
Source: NHTSA owner complaints
Where the complaints are
Share of this model year's complaints by the part of the car involved. One complaint can name more than one part, so the shares can add up to more than 100%.
When problems show up
View the numbers
| Mileage | Complaints |
|---|---|
| 0k to 20k miles | 34 |
| 20k to 40k miles | 23 |
| 40k to 60k miles | 17 |
| 60k to 80k miles | 8 |
| 80k to 100k miles | 6 |
| 100k to 120k miles | 3 |
| 120k to 140k miles | 0 |
| 140k to 160k miles | 0 |
| 160k to 180k miles | 0 |
| 180k to 200k miles | 0 |
| 200k+ miles | 0 |
What the data shows
Of the 91 complaints that include odometer readings, half describe a problem before roughly 30,000 miles. For air bags specifically, the median reported mileage is about 59,000 miles (20 complaints with mileage).
Safety-related details: 7 complaints mention a crash; 7 injuries reported.
Looking only at complaints filed within five years of the model year (so older and newer years are comparable), the 2011 ranks 8th most-complained-about out of 13 model years of the Nissan Leaf with enough data (62 complaints in that window).
What owners wrote
A few complaints as filed, shortened and with personal details removed. The first ones are among the most serious reports for this model year; the rest are typical.
I was on the freeway traveling appropriately 65 MPH. The vehicle to the right and in front of me suddenly swerved in to my lane and braked hard in front of me. With no place to go on either side of me, I was forced to brake fast and hard. The ABS kicked in as expected but once I had decelerated to a point where I knew a collision was not imminent and took my foot off the brake, the car continued breaking very hard.
I purchased my 2011 nissan leaf in september of 2012 from stadium nissan in orange, california. I quickly learned that this vehicle was not built for my 69 mile commute(4.9 miles per kwh), but was able to adapt and make it work until a job change in october of 2013. My 10 year old son and I were rear ended shortly after our move to turlock, california. My nissan leaf held up very well to being rear ended at 45MPH by a full sized chevy silverado; as I drove it away and the chevy was totaled.
About a month and a half ago, I purchased a 2011 nissan leaf from my local dealer. Everything was going great until about a month ago when I was driving on the highway around 20 MPH or so when the power suddenly shut off. The entire dashboard instantly went off but the radio+touchscreen remained on. The car came to a crawl and I was able to pull over and restart without any problems. It was a little scary to say the least.
Two months ago I was braking moderately when the car shuttered, there was a bump and the car began coasting. I saw that it had popped into n (neutral) even though I didn't touch the gear shift. I tried to put it back into d (drive) but it wouldn't respond. I pushed the car to the side of the road and tried several times to shut it down. Finally, it responded, then restarted and drove normally. After that, there would be intermittent shuttering and bumping while braking.