CarComplaints.com Notes: Here's a disturbing trend for the 2002 Nissan Altima: the engine starts burning oil like crazy, the catalytic converter goes bad, the head gasket blows and eventually the entire engine needs replacement. Sound familiar? Like a script from a horror film, these Altimas seem doomed to fail around 95k miles.

10.0

really awful
Crashes / Fires:
1 / 0
Injuries / Deaths:
0 / 0
Average Mileage:
33,008 miles

About These NHTSA Complaints:

This data is from the NHTSA — the US gov't agency tasked with vehicle safety. Complaints are spread across multiple & redundant categories, & are not organized by problem.

So how do you find out what problems are occurring? For this NHTSA complaint data, the only way is to read through the comments below. Any duplicates or errors? It's not us.

2003 Nissan Altima engine problems

engine problem

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2003 Nissan Altima Owner Comments

problem #3

Oct 092009

Altima

  • 94,364 miles

A D V E R T I S E M E N T S

The contact owns a 2003 Nissan Altima. While driving at speeds of 35 mph, the engine would not respond when depressing the accelerator pedal. Within a few moments after sitting idle, the vehicle became responsive to the depressed accelerator pedal. The vehicle was taken to the dealer where a diagnostic test was performed, however the failure could not be duplicated. The vehicle was taken to a second dealer but they too, could not duplicate the failure. The failure mileage was 94,364 and the current mileage was unknown.

- Versailles, KY, USA

problem #2

Sep 012004

Altima 6-cyl

  • Automatic transmission
  • miles
While driving on the highway and when pushing on the gas pedal vehicle would not accelerate, and it does this when trying to precede on from a stop light. It might go 2-3 mph. This first started happening around September 1, 2004 and this happened intermittently. There was no fore warning and there was no noise.

- Richmond, VA, USA

problem #1

Jun 202004

Altima 4-cyl

  • 4,660 miles
While parking, the vehicle accelerated forward. As a result, the vehicle crashed into a parked car. No injuries reported.

- Houston, TX, USA

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