Tl* the contact owns a 2011 nissan leaf. The contact stated that while driving approximately 15 MPH, the brake pedal was depressed and failed to respond without warning. As a result, the contact crashed into another vehicle. The contact sustained injuries that did not require medical attention. A police report was filed. The vehicle was destroyed. The manufacturer was notified of the failure. The failure mileage was 50,060.
2011 Nissan Leaf brakes complaints
Page 2 of 2: complaints 11 to 22 of 22, newest first, as owners wrote them.
Brakes on the nissan leaf were pulsing on and the would turn off and a few seconds later would turn back on. Cycle would repeat every 3 seconds till the car came to complete stop. Local dealer investigated and informed me the disc brake rotors were warped. Can't believe the brakes would shut down if rotors were warped. Could have lead to serious accident.
Two months ago I was braking moderately when the car shuttered, there was a bump and the car began coasting. I saw that it had popped into n (neutral) even though I didn't touch the gear shift. I tried to put it back into d (drive) but it wouldn't respond. I pushed the car to the side of the road and tried several times to shut it down. Finally, it responded, then restarted and drove normally. After that, there would be intermittent shuttering and bumping while braking. The recharging lights will pulse and I can feel the regenerative feature grab and then release. One morning recently, along with these symptoms the range plummeted quickly, by about 1 mile per second. After driving only 20 miles I had 17 miles of indicated range. Then, yesterday, the first problem reappeared: the car went into neutral and briefly wouldn't respond. The car is now at the dealer.
My nissan leaf has never been in an accident of any sort, and has never even been driven over a curb. It is less than 18 months, and less than 15,000 miles. Front the day I got it, I felt that at times when I pressed the brakes on it, that they would slip, or not grab for a 1/2 second, but thought this might have been me. The car failed completely 10 days ago, and will not start, telling me that my foot was not on the brake! (a condition for starting). Combined with the fact that it cannot see the brakes being heavily depressed (for starting) and its computer controlled brakes slipping for 1/2 second, it makes me think that the computer has some reason for not seeing the brakes working. The nissan dealership, and nissan USA have been unable to figure out what the problem is, and after 10 days nissan USA has not gotten any closer to a resolution. Is this a computer/braking defect? Is it common? It certainly affects the safety of those riding in a car, as brake failure is certainly as important as an accelerator sticking. Has a recall been ordered for this, and how many cars are involved in it?
I was driving on the highway about 50 MPH. The car in front of me stopped quickly, and I had to press on the brake pretty hard to slow down quickly. But as soon as I did that, some crazy emergency/automatic brake system kicked into overdrive and slammed on the brakes like 10 times harder than I did, and caused my car to practically stop in the middle of the highway. I thought I was going to get hit by a car, but luckily I didn't. This was very dangerous and scary, and clearly a defect in some braking or computer system. I have also had a similar thing happen when I am driving slower (like 30 MPH), but the effect is not as dangerous or intense. I took the car into the dealer and they updated some computer upgrades that were not related to this issue, but they could not recreate the problem. I have heard from other leaf owners with the exact same problems, and yet nissan does not seem to recognize this as a problem. This is a serious problem that needs to be fixed before people get hurt.
Brake application is at times very inconsistent. Especially at low speeds (<40mph) sometimes a light brake application creates a disproportional brake force. This results in sudden involuntary stops often accompanied by the heads of passengers and driver being jerked forward. The issue does not occur all the time but is reproducible within a few minutes of driving.
I noticed the braking defect soon after taking delivery of my leaf. Similarly to the other respondents, the continuance to braking after the pedal has been released occurs at any speed and without warning. I have had it happen at parking lot speeds, on the freeway, and at all speeds in between. I have been unable to discern any particular situation that seems to 'cause' the phenomenon. I have expressed my concern about this to two separate nissan dealership service representatives (at downtown nissan of los angeles, and universal city nissan) who both said it was the first they'd heard of the problem. Neither seemed inclined to look into my claim in any way. The fact that a serious freeway collision has been reported along with several other less serious occurrences detailing the same problem indicates that there is indeed a problem. Is nissan waiting for people to be killed because of this before they do something about it? I really love the car, except for this braking problem, but I really hate nissan for ignoring something potentially life threatening until someone is seriously injured or killed.
While braking lightly and not sudden to turn into a shopping center, the leaf applied full brakes and did not release the brakes until the car was going about 10 MPH.
I have definitely noticed the braking assist displaying a mind of its own, though never on the freeway as yet. Sometimes I just tap the pedal and the brakes apply much more than I was pushing. Other times the brakes apply normally, but do not release immediately after releasing the pedal. Nissan...something is up here.
When driving at 60 MPH down the freeway, I hit the brakes hard to avoid a collision with the car in front of me. I decelerated to about 30mph while veering to the right to avoid hitting the other car. To inform the rapidly approaching car behind me, I tapped my brakes about 4-5 times a second to flash my taillights. At that point the brakes locked up and my car rapidly decelerated even though I had removed my foot from the brake pedal. After about 1/3-1/2 second, the brakes released and I was able to regain control of the car and continue driving. After checking online forums and my local EV group, it turns out that two other people have experienced similar braking behavior where the car decelerated rapidly even though the brake pedal was not pressed.
I was on the freeway traveling appropriately 65 MPH. The vehicle to the right and in front of me suddenly swerved in to my lane and braked hard in front of me. With no place to go on either side of me, I was forced to brake fast and hard. The ABS kicked in as expected but once I had decelerated to a point where I knew a collision was not imminent and took my foot off the brake, the car continued breaking very hard. It took the better part of a second with my foot now completely off the brake before the brakes actually released. In this time, the car behind me was not able to stop and hit me hard, causing injury to two people in the car who were not belted in. This accident would have been avoidable if the leaf had not failed to decrease the braking effort when I released pressure and then ultimately took my foot completely off the brake pedal. It felt as if something like the brake assist function was malfunctioning...
I was accelerating after getting on the freeway heading north and slightly uphill I might have been peaking at 55mph when the truck in front of me suddenly slammed his brakes on. I did the same and I hear my tires screeching , I presumed that they were locking. However I did maintain my direction and didn't seem to loose control. When I realized I would not rear-end the truck I left my foot off the brake. I was alarmed when my tires were still locked and remained locked for what I thought was a very long half second. By that time I think I was under 20 MPH on a freeway and I was darn lucky nobody was rear-ending me! I think this is a defect in the braking response.
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