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.

2.1

hardly worth mentioning
Crashes / Fires:
0 / 0
Injuries / Deaths:
0 / 0
Average Mileage:
76,000 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.

2002 Nissan Altima seat belts / air bags problems

seat belts / air bags problem

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2002 Nissan Altima Owner Comments

problem #2

Jan 052007

Altima 4-cyl

  • Automatic transmission
  • 74,000 miles

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

-the contact owns a 2002 Nissan Altima there is a recall on the fuel pump screen which caused the engine to stall, and the engine service light to remain on. During the diagnosis they found a service engine code pertaining to the catalyst. He took it to the dealership and called Nissan, who inform him that the dealer would fix it, but Nissan called back refusing to cover the cost of the repair. The failure mileage was 74,000, and the current mileage was 80,000. The manifold exhaust was replaced, when the vehicle was in idle, it would surge. The air bag sensor was replaced. Updated 05/22/07.

- Church Point, LA, USA

problem #1

Aug 242006

Altima 4-cyl

  • Automatic transmission
  • 78,000 miles
The air bag warning light was flashing, so a brought the car into the dealer to get it checked. The dealer diagnosed the problem as a passenger side air bag module sensor and it would need to be replaced or the passenger side air bag would not work in a crash. At the time I was purchasing the car the same air bag light was flashing during our test drive of the car. The dealer checked into the flashing warning light and reset the module before we bought the car. This stopped the flashing warning light from flashing. About 2-3 months later the same air bag warning light started flashing again. The dealer reset the module a second time. On my last visit for the warning light flashing on 9/29/2006 the dealer said the module was not able to be reset and that it had failed and would need to be replaced at a cost of $1,100 parts/labor. I purchased the car with 59,000 miles on it. It currently has 79,000 miles. The dealer said this problem is not covered in the previous recall R3001. I am concerned the flashing air bag warning light indicated a problem early on, it needed to be reset twice before it finally failed.

- Beaumont, TX, USA

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