2019 NISSAN ALTIMA — Complaint #2077350
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about SEATS:FRONT ASSEMBLY:SEAT HEATER/COOLER filed March 26, 2025
NHTSA complaint #2077350 (ODI reference 11650733) concerns a 2019 NISSAN ALTIMA and was filed on March 26, 2025. The owner reports the failure occurred on January 26, 2024. The vehicle had 100,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Alabama based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as seats:front assembly:seat heater/cooler, 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: 0, 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. Because a VIN was supplied, this complaint is tied to a specific vehicle and not just a model-year cohort.
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 seats:front assembly:seat heater/cooler 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 2019 NISSAN ALTIMA shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
The contact owns a 2019 Nissan Altima. The contact stated her son was driving on the highway at 70 MPH, when an abnormal smell of garbage was followed by smoke being emitted from a hole in the rear side of the front passenger seat. No warning lights were illuminated. The contact was an occupant seated in the front passenger seat when there was a burning sensation was felt. The contact's son immediately pulled over onto the side of the road to exit the vehicle, where the contact then proceeded to extinguish the fire with a beverage. The contact mentioned her jacket and a pillow case caught on fire during the incident. A fire department report was not filed. A police department report was not filed. The vehicle was not destroyed, and no injuries were reported. The vehicle was taken to a local dealer, where the vehicle was diagnosed, and the contact was advised that the wiring on the passenger seat was of probable cause for the failure, and that the passenger seat would have to be replace
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 2077350 |
| ODI Number | 11650733 |
| Date Filed | March 26, 2025 |
| Failure Date | January 26, 2024 |
| VIN | 1N4BL4EV5KC |
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.