2020 Nissan Sentra: What to check before buying

Front tie rods bend or break. Drivers describe violent steering-wheel vibration, clicking or thumping when turning in reverse, excessive play, and front-end shake over potholes or near 60 mph. Some say the car stopped responding to the wheel, and 2 reports involve crashes with injuries. Most complaints connect the problem to a federal tie-rod recall. Many describe waiting about a year for parts, getting repeat replacements, or doubting the recall work was ever done. Some dealers also found a worn steering rack. One clicking complaint lists 21,900 miles.

Door lock actuators fail, usually on the rear or driver-side doors. Those doors stop locking or unlocking from the fob or the interior switch, and the alarm may not sound when a locked door is opened. One report describes a door that would not open from inside or out. These failures often show up just after the warranty ends, at 18,000 to 43,000 miles. Other reports cover automatic emergency braking on empty roads, a blank or blue backup camera, sticking windows, and a key fob the car does not recognize. Both crash reports involve braking or blind-spot warning failures.

Automatic emergency braking activates with nothing in the road. The car brakes hard or stops on city streets and highways, often with a red dash warning and beeping. Malfunction warnings for emergency braking and forward collision warning come and go, and some owners say rain and road glare set them off. Dealers often cannot duplicate the fault. Replacement sensors and cameras have not always stopped it from coming back. Several reports put the first events under 20,000 miles. One report links a crash to the malfunction warning.

Most of these reports also describe phantom automatic braking: the car brakes hard at 25 to 60 mph with no obstacle ahead. Owners name bright sunlight, rain, and uphill grades as triggers, and many say it began within weeks of purchase. Repeated dealer visits often end with no fix or a fault that cannot be reproduced. In the one crash report, the opposite happened: the system failed to stop or warn before the car hit a parked vehicle. A separate report describes a brake caliper piston popping out.

There is no single pattern here. One driver says the car stalled in traffic and would not move, and the dealer replaced the CVT transaxle. Another describes repeated loss of power with a "Malfunction" message, which a new brake light switch fixed at 41,000 miles. Other reports cover hesitation and vibration on acceleration, surging when slowing for a stop, and starter and electrical faults still unfixed after 5 or 6 dealer visits. One complaint here describes a tie rod snapping on the highway.

Tie rods fracture, sometimes at very low speed or over an ordinary bump. The car becomes undrivable or veers into whatever is beside it. Reports mention a steering-wheel shimmy before the break, and one catastrophic failure also took out the lower control arm. One fracture at 12,500 miles was later linked to a recall notice on this part. Another report lists repeated "Engine Malfunction, Power Reduced" warnings, plus an instrument cluster and screen that reboot while driving.

The backup camera shows a blue, frozen, fuzzy, or blank screen when the car is in reverse. Fixes do not always last. The fault can return after the recall remedy or a warranty repair, and some dealers decline further work because no recall applies to that VIN. In one crash report, a bus hit the car while the camera was frozen and gave no alert. Another describes rear automatic braking that fires while parking with nothing behind the car. Reported mileages range from 16,000 to 50,000.

Four reports share no common cause. One describes an engine malfunction warning at 37000 miles that a computer update did not fix. Another reports shuddering with a rattle from under the hood near 28,879 miles. The other two cover a broken tensioner pulley and an engine that burns oil between changes, with a check engine light, power loss, and loud noises from the engine.