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1996 NISSAN MAXIMA — Complaint #663139

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NHTSA Complaint about STEERING:GEAR BOX:SHAFT PITMAN filed March 26, 2008

NHTSA complaint #663139 (ODI reference 10222383) concerns a 1996 NISSAN MAXIMA and was filed on March 26, 2008. The owner reports the failure occurred on March 24, 2008. The report was geocoded to California based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as steering:gear box:shaft pitman, 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: no, injuries: 0, fatalities: 0. No crash, fire, or fatality was associated with this report, which places it in the early-warning stream rather than the priority-review stream. 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 MAXIMA cohort independently describe similar steering:gear box:shaft pitman 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 1996 NISSAN MAXIMA shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.

Vehicle
1996 NISSAN MAXIMA
Component
STEERING:GEAR BOX:SHAFT PITMAN
State
California

Complaint Description

I FACED A RARE (I DON'T KNOW I AM THINKING IT AS RARE) PROBLEM WITH NISSAN MAXIMA. WHEN I WAS DRIVING THE VEHICLE IN DRIVE MODE MY FRIEND, SITTING IN THE OTHER SEAT, ACCIDENTALLY CHANGED THE GEAR TO REVERSE MODE THEN THE STRANGE THING HAPPENED, THE CAR STEERING GOT LOCKED AND THE CAR GOT DECELERATED VERY FAST (AS I WAS APPLYING A BRAKE) AND EVEN THOUGH I CHANGED THE GEAR INTO DRIVE MODE THE CAR WONT PICK ACCELERATION AND BEHAVED AS IT IS IN THE NEUTRAL GEAR. SO, THE CAR STOPPED IN THE MIDDLE OF THE INTERSTATE ON THE LEFT LANE AND WE ALMOST GOT KILLED BY THE ON COMING TRAFFIC. SINCE THE STEERING WHEEL IS NOT MOVING WE ARE NOT ABLE TO MOVE THE CAR TO THE SHOULDER. WHAT WE DID IS WE STOPPED (TURN OFF) THE VEHICLE ON THE INTERSTATE AND CHANGED THE GEAR INTO PARKING AND STARTED IT AGAIN, AFTER "FEW SECONDS" THE CAR FINALLY MOVED. I AM SO SCARED BY THE EVENT AND I WANTED TO REPORT TO SOME ONE AND I THOUGHT MAY BE NHTSA IS THE BEST BET. PLEASE TELL ME WHETHER IT WILL BE THE SAME TO A

Complaint Details

NHTSA Complaint ID 663139
ODI Number 10222383
Date Filed March 26, 2008
Failure Date March 24, 2008

Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.