Nissan Maxima

Which Nissan Maxima years should you avoid?

Going by 6,507 owner complaints filed with NHTSA, the Nissan Maxima years to avoid are 2004, 2005, 2006, 2002 and 1998.

• 20041,426 complaints, 12.8× a typical Maxima year, most often about the transmission.
• 2005948 complaints, 8.5× a typical Maxima year, most often about the transmission.
• 2006576 complaints, 5.2× a typical Maxima year, most often about the transmission.
• 20024.6× the usual share of fires, crashes and deaths for a car of its age (0 fires, 27 crashes, 6 deaths).
• 19984.1× the usual share of fires, crashes and deaths for a car of its age (12 fires, 13 crashes, 1 death).

4 more years cleared the same bar; they are marked in the table below.

Better bets: among years old enough for a low count to mean something, the 2013 drew the fewest complaints without an unusual share of serious ones.

How this is worked out: each year is compared with a typical year of the same model, which takes most of the difference in sales out of it, and its share of serious failures is compared with every other car of the same model year, because older cars were complained about differently. A year needs 25 complaints to be judged at all. Complaints are unverified owner reports. Full method →