2020 NISSAN ALTIMA — Complaint #1900102
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about ELECTRICAL SYSTEM:SEAT HEATER:WIRING HARNESS filed June 6, 2023
NHTSA complaint #1900102 (ODI reference 11525646) concerns a 2020 NISSAN ALTIMA and was filed on June 6, 2023. The owner reports the failure occurred on June 3, 2022. The vehicle had 55,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to New York based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as electrical system:seat heater:wiring harness, one of NHTSA's standardized taxonomy codes used to group defect patterns across make, model, and year.
The filer flagged the following severity indicators: crash: no, fire: yes, injuries: 1, fatalities: 0. A complaint that flags a crash, fire, or fatality is escalated on NHTSA's internal review queue and factors more heavily into any Preliminary Evaluation decision on this make and model. No VIN was supplied by the filer, so this complaint contributes to model-year trend data but cannot be tied to a specific vehicle.
Individual complaints are consumer-submitted and unverified by NHTSA engineers — the agency's role at this stage is to collect, index, and make them searchable. What matters for federal action is the pattern: when many owners of the same NISSAN ALTIMA cohort independently describe similar electrical system:seat heater:wiring harness failures, defect investigators have grounds to open a PE and request manufacturer data. Related filings for the same vehicle and component appear below, and the detail page for the full 2020 NISSAN ALTIMA shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
The contact owns a 2020 Nissan Altima. The contact stated while the vehicle was at a standstill in a parking lot and using the seat heater for approximately 30 minutes, the front driverside seat heater caught fire. The contact extinguished the fire with bottles of water he had available. The contact sustained superficial burns on his lower back and continues to have trouble breathing but hasn't sought medical attention. The contact drove to the nearest fire department but was under construction and was unable to file any fire report. The contact also stated later on that day he drove to a police department and filed a police report. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. A dealer was not contacted. The manufacturer had not been informed of the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 55,000. The VIN was not available.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1900102 |
| ODI Number | 11525646 |
| Date Filed | June 6, 2023 |
| Failure Date | June 3, 2022 |
Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.
Read our methodology — how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.