2011 Nissan Leaf: jerking or lurching

Filed May 27, 2016 · Brakes · 25,000 miles · CA

I echo so many others who have had the experience of the brakes being out of one's control at low speeds. Instead of allowing for a smooth, slow deceleration, the brakes activate hard end end up jerking the car. There have been times when this has been really frightening. Enough people have complained about this that it should be looked into! It's hard to recall exactly the conditions under which this happens, because it's intermittent, but mostly at low speeds.

Filed May 4, 2016 · Brakes · 15,677 miles · FL

When depressing the brake pedal, the vehicle goes from a soft braking to a jolting stop at speeds below 20 MPH. The vehicle jerks severly when braking and I am also very concerned this will be a problem on wet roads and I'm worried about being rear-ended as it stops suddenly. I experience this everyday that I drive it. Now, the brakes have also been releasing when I'm trying to stop at higher speeds, giving the feeling that I may not get stopped in time. And this is only getting worse. The car especially jolts when creeping forward at a light or into a parking spot. The releasing, where I felt like I could not stop the car, I have experienced recently also happened in the same situations. The car will also occasionally creep forward when the car was stopped, and the brake pedal is still depressed.

Filed May 28, 2015 · 30,000 miles · TX

My car requires me to wait after pushing the start button before I can shift into drive or reverse. If I do not wait, then the car skips d or r and shifts into the neutral even when I select the gear shifter to r or d. I have explained this situation to my local austin nissan dealer on 5/28/15. It was explained to me that this is normal. I consider this a serious safety issue when I start my car on an incline or hill and attempt to shift to d or r. If I do not wait, then the car rolls downhill in neutral, regardless if I shift to d or r. The car is then able to lurch for several feet down and free roll downhill before I reapply my foot to the brake pedal. I could easily hit another car or pedestrian. It seems unsafe for the driver to have to remember to wait for > 0.5 second (estimate) before shifting out of park. The electronics shifter should default to remain in park if it is not ready to go into d or r. Going into n seems like a poor electronic default position when shifting from p to d or r at the start of car. I found multiple complaints of this online when I searched "nissan leaf shift to neutral". Thanks for your consideration.

Filed Sep 29, 2014 · Brakes · 2,550 miles · CA

While in a lineup of cars at a stop sign intersection, I had to start and stop repeatedly, as each car moved forward. Very soon, the brakes developed a jerky response, grabbing and releasing. So the car was lurching forward and jerking to a stop. It was quite embarrassing, and the car behind me nearly rear-ended me. This was the first occurrence, and the same thing has happened several times since. The brakes are not consistent - sometimes they grab completely and a couple of times I have completely lost braking power for a few moments. The issue still exists, and I know several other leaf drivers who have also experienced it. This is very dangerous, and one of these days someone will be killed because of nissan's negligence, unless the federal safety agency forces some action on it. This needs to be looked into very thoroughly and fixed.

Filed May 19, 2012 · Brakes · 4,500 miles · CA

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.