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.

3.0

hardly worth mentioning
Crashes / Fires:
0 / 0
Injuries / Deaths:
0 / 0
Average Mileage:
47,000 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.

2003 Nissan Altima drivetrain problems

drivetrain problem

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2003 Nissan Altima Owner Comments

problem #1

Mar 162007

Altima 4-cyl

  • Automatic transmission
  • 47,000 miles

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

Nissan 2003 Altima 2.5 S. the car turned off while in traffic. There had been a recent recall based on reprogramming the chip that described the condition. This did not solve the problem. It was then diagnosed as a corrupted timing chain sensor. When replaced it solved the problem. When I argued about this repair being covered by the standard 60 month 60,000 mile drive train warranty it was not. The Nissan dealership told me it "would not be fair to all the other people that paid $180 to get his repaired. A car that stops in traffic and will not turn back on for 5 - 45 minutes is very dangerous.

- Santa Fe , NM, USA

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