10.0
really awful- Crashes / Fires:
- 1 / 0
- Injuries / Deaths:
- 3 / 0
- Average Mileage:
- 28,178 miles
About These NHTSA Complaints:
The NHTSA is the US gov't agency tasked with vehicle safety. Complaints can be spread across multiple & redundant categories, & are not organized by problem. See the Back button — blue bar at the very top of the page — to explore more.
Was driving down a washboard part of a dirt road in route to 4wheel like I normally do and the 2006 Frontier nismo curtain airbags deployed for no reason other then the system believed it was rolling over. This was out in the middle of nowhere away from cell coverage so no police report could be made. I have noticed many threads of xterras and Frontiers online that have been getting this problem including a youtube video of an xterras deploying. Nothing has been done yet the vehicle is sitting in front of my house as I decide weather there is a buildable case against Nissan or to give up and try for repairs somewhere, the insurance estimate is ~4,000$ usd. Both side curtain airbags, seat damage, seatbelts broken.
- Castle Rock, CO, USA
My girlfriend and I were driving down a washboard farm type road and randomly our side curtain airbags went off on both sides causing severe soft tissue damage in our necks and anxiety / being terrified of the truck. Currently looking into personal injury and filed with insurance company. The area we were in was an area with no cell service and quite far from the nearest town and with the airbags breaking the seatblets etc it was a very unsafe drive.
- Castle Rock, CO, USA
My son was turning around our 2006 Frontier nismo off road 4WD on a rutted dirt road at a speed of no more than 15 mph when the rollover airbags, on both sides, deployed without warning. Nissan of american investigated. Below is a portion of Nissan's letter to me. I will forward via us mail a complete copy of this letter to NHTSA: "air bags must be made so that they inflate fast enough in a severe accident. The speed at which an air bag inflates and then deflates is similar in all designs. Air bags are designed to inflate in less than 1/20 of a second. Air bags are predictive. The signal which is sent to the sensor in some underbody impacts is very similar to the signal sent to the sensor in rollover situation. Both diagnostic and visual checks confirmed that there was no evidence of a problem with the air bag or seat belt systems in your vehicle." As a result of Nissan's design, a side air bag sensor, 2 rollover air bag assemblies, 2 seat belt assemblies, a headliner and plastic trim items were replaced. The old parts, exclusive of the headliner, are available. On the rear quarter panel, the vehicle is labeled "off road" and is clearly intended for that use according to Nissan''s advertising. Nissan's own statement proves that their control system for rollover airbags is defective in that their rollover air bags may deploy because the "signal which is sent to the sensor in some underbody impacts is very similar to the signal sent to the sensor in rollover situation"'. consumers rely on Nissan to design a rollover air bag system that deploys in the event of a rollover, not a defective design which causes an underbody impact to initiate an unnecessary rollover airbag deployment. Rollover air bags that operate in a manner unpredictable by the consumer are not safe. Nissan should redesign this system on future vehicles and recall current vehicles to make the needed changes, before people are injured by airbags that needlessly deploy. Updated.
- Longview, TX, USA
- Altamonte Springs, FL, USA