2015 Nissan Leaf problems
NHTSA has received 146 complaints about the 2015 Nissan Leaf, and 59% of them involve brakes. Next are electrical system (12%) and air bags (5%).
At a glance
- Complaints
- 146 filed with NHTSA
- Most reported
- Brakes 59% of complaints
- Crashes and fires
- 9 and 0
- Injuries and deaths
- 3 and 0
- Typical mileage
- 30,000 miles 88 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 | 35 |
| 20k to 40k miles | 31 |
| 40k to 60k miles | 17 |
| 60k to 80k miles | 2 |
| 80k to 100k miles | 2 |
| 100k to 120k miles | 1 |
| 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 88 complaints that include odometer readings, half describe a problem before roughly 30,000 miles. For brakes specifically, the median reported mileage is about 33,000 miles (54 complaints with mileage).
Safety-related details: 9 complaints mention a crash; 3 injuries reported.
Looking only at complaints filed within five years of the model year (so older and newer years are comparable), the 2015 ranks 6th most-complained-about out of 13 model years of the Nissan Leaf with enough data (81 complaints in that window). It is also covered by 4 safety recall campaigns.
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.
Purchased a brand new 2015 nissan leaf on september 12th, 2015 3 weeks later on oct 5th, 2015 brakes failed on this brand new car while driving in traffic on the freeway. As a result I ended up hitting a truck in the rear end at 55 MPH. Inuries sustained in the accident and 2015 nissan leaf was totaled. I called this into nissan and was told there was a service notice for this car for brake failure.
Tl* the contact owned a 2015 nissan leaf. While driving approximately 40 MPH, the vehicle was involved in a front end three vehicle collision. The air bags did not deploy. The vehicle was towed to a towing yard where it was deemed destroyed. The manufacturer was notified of the failure. There was one injury that did not require medical attention. The contact suffered from back pain and pain to the right hand and thumb pain. A police report was filed. The failure mileage was approximately 25,000.
As I turned into a parallel parking spot and applied the brakes, the brakes went to the floor and the car never slowed. My car hit the parked car in front of me.
Brake recall issue NHTSA campaign number: 16v119000 I have been to the dealership three times to get this fixed, but every time the dealership comes back and says that they could not reproduce it so it is fixed. But every time I park in the garage at my work place or park overnight outdoors, I run into this problem where the exclamation icon would light up and the brakes would malfunction where I have to press harder for the brakes to apply.
Upon startup, one of two things has occured. The first is that the car creeps forward even tho I have my foot on the break. Pressing harder did not seem to stop the motion. This happened in d (forward) and r (reverse) motion on 2 separate occasions. The second thing, related, was that upon vehicle startup, even with my foot on the break, the car did not recognize that I had my foot on the break and would not go into drive.