Why is the Nissan Qashqai such an unreliable car?

The Nissan Qashqai has been a familiar sight on Britain's roads for a number of years, but after a number of reported owner faults, the reliability of the car has come into question. Nissan have been the subject of a number of newspaper reports in the last year or so that tell of customer misery as cars are returned to the garage with serious problems, many of which left them without their vehicle for several weeks in some cases.

Unfortunately, owners on Qashqai forums have also chipped in with tales about unreliable cars in terms of engines, electrical faults and other issues and have referred other forum visitors to check out the Which? car guide which has also called the car unreliable in previous years. However, despite this a number of customers have also defended the car and praised it's design despite some of the recent reports that seem to suggest the contrary.

Although not exclusively so, one of the key problems appears to have been cars that were fitted with 1.2 litre DIG-T petrol engines that were supplied by Renault and introduced into the cars in 2014 onwards. One report in the Guardian in 2017 references a brand new car that started to go wrong - initially with a timing chain that should normally be guaranteed to last a car's lifetime. In this scenario the car ended up needed a whole new engine which subsequently started to go wrong again just a few weeks later!

In terms of reputation for the Qashqai, it has also featured on a What Car list of ten models of car with the lowest reliability score which is based on feedback from 14,000 car owners, and of these the owners have had the cars between 0 to 3 years. On the list the diesel model came in at number eight due to the fact that approximately half of all models had developed faults during the first year of ownership. The Sunderland produced cars had a large amount of engine problems and a quarter also developed electrical faults affecting air-conditioning units, sat navs and infotainments systems. Others also developed battery problems but in a lesser degree.

Despite these problems the car continues to be popular with consumers, and in some cases problems have not been severe enough to make the car undriveable. However, the recent catalogue of faults may be enough to make some buyers think twice before they drive off in a Nissan Qashqai!