- nissan will recall 688,946 of its 2014–2016 rogue suvs to fix a problem with the electrical connector for the under-dashboard harness.
- corrosion from water and salt coming in through the driver's footwell could cause the harness to corrode, causing issues up to and including a risk of fire.
- owners will be notified starting march 2, and nissan said its fix for the issue is "under development."
nissan announced it will recall nearly 700,000 of its 2014–2016 rogue suvs to fix a problem with the dashboard harness connector. over time, salt and water getting in through the driver's-side footwell could "wick up the dash-side harness tape and enter the connector," nissan said. this could lead to a number of problems, according to a report filed with the national highway traffic safety administration (nhtsa). among them could be failure of the driver's-side power window or power seat controls, illumination of the all-wheel-drive system warning light, battery discharge, "a burning odor," smoke under the dash on the driver's side, and, potentially, fire.
according to the chronology of the issue that nissan has filed with nhtsa, there have been three "unconfirmed incidents" in u.s. vehicles and no injuries, as well as two "thermal incidents" and two "incidents with localized thermal damage" in rogue vehicles in canada.
nissan said the problem is likely to occur in only about 1 percent of the recalled vehicles. they include 305,220 rogues built at the renault samsung motors plant in south korea and 383,726 built at smyrna, tennessee, for a total of 688,946 2014 through 2016 models. nissan said it changed the manufacturing process at the end of the 2016 model year, so newer rogues will not experience the issue, and the nhtsa report said no other nissan or infiniti vehicles used the same harness layout and tape as on these earlier rogues.
owners will be notified beginning march 2. nissan is still figuring out a remedy for the issue but said it expects a repair to be available in the spring. the automaker also said it will contact owners about reimbursement for fixes that happened before the recall notification, since the vehicles in the recall are no longer under warranty.
in the meantime, rogue owners who want to find out if their vehicle is affected can check the nhtsa recalls site.