I purchased my Z @ 38,000 mi with wrnty. 48,000 mi 5th gear really starts to grind. So I take it to Pat Pec Nissan in moible,AL. They agrred to replace the tranny. well while it is out I purchase ans act clutch w/stillen flywheel for $1000. They told me that there was no extra chage to install the parts since they would have to reinstall them back anyway. Well they charge me for it. When I got the car back next week I have a bad rattle in the tranny when under normal driving conditions when under 2300 rpms. I took it back about three times and I am told its normal everytime. I am not reffering to clutch chatter that is there as well and very loud.

Pat Pec also did my oil changes. I use royal purple. Well then@ 50,000 mi it has been about 3,000 mi after my oil change and my oil light came on when slowing for a stoplight. I was concerned and got the oil changed the next day. I told the service manager(Joel Ridings) and one of the techs. Their response was "its probably just because the sensor is at the back of the pan and all the oil went to the front while breaking at the light".

After that oil change about 2,300 mi later it does it again. I bring it back and spoke with Joel Riding again. His response "Its completly normal for the car to consume a 1/2 qt of oil every 1000 mi". I told him no it is not. My heavly modded 120,00 mi AWD eclipse didnt even do that. Joel says gm says that it is ok for it to use 1qt.

Well @ 58,000 and some change I bring it back, its getting worse. He says its b/c I use royal purple. I went inside and was telling Ray (parts guy) about it. He stops a service tech (Terry) and I told him what was going on. His response was "There is a problem there".

He gets in for oil consumption tests. 59,XXX. Somehow it passes.
Next step, they top it off with oil and I am told to drive it for 1,000 miles and bring it back. (No documentation) stupid I know. I am concerned and ask if there will be a problem when I bring it back b/c It will be over 1000 mi. He says no.

I bring it back a little early @ 60,014. To no surprise it is a qt low. Tery puts in a request for a new motor. DENIED. out of wrnty.


I called nissan consumer affairs. Spoke with carl and argued and argued. I even told them that I had an extened wrnty trough another co called olimpacare. He finally called back and said "Ill provide the motor if you pay for the labor".


Firs I asked Joel, "Joel you told me that there was no problem, now I need a new motor. Will you make your wrong a right and do the work"? He says absolutly not.

I took the car (next door to nissan) to joe bullard mitsubishi where I use to work and where I bought the car and where I have the extended wrnty. They toped it off and put dye in it so they could see any oil leaks. Well, 500 miles later its a qt low


Olipacare is paying for 36hrs of work. Everything is set. Sad but it will get done.

I have to laeave for two weeks for work. What a good time to leave my car there at Pat Pec nissan. I drop it off on a sat June 2nd I believe. Jeremey the service advisor in charge of my Z now says we will get the motor in the middle of next week. Cool, I will have my car back when I come back from FL.

Main time Joel is fired and terry leaves and starts at Joe Bullard Mitsubishi.
New Service manger is Kathy.

I order some headers to hang on there when installing the new motor. I get back and the car is in a million peices with parts all over the floor. It was bad rings, go figure. The Tech working on the car is going on and on how I need a new clutch and flywheel. I only have about 14,000 mi on the set up. I bring a friend (corey mayson) He built his S2000 Which was on the cover of modified mag back in march. He looks at the setup and say I have atleast another year out of it.

I get a call form Fred Banks, The distric manager. He says That there is no reman motor for the Z and I would have to pay extra money for the motor. 2k or 4k I cant remember. Fred says there is a limit of $5,000 that they can spend. He tries to tell me that they are helping me out. I told him the whole story and he does not seem to give a damn.

Well Fred and I decide on a bottom end (8:8.1) built by kyle @ Imporpartspro.com. Its in his spending limit. I was told abour Kyle by Ray Styles (parts guy).

About three weeks or so later the bottom end comes in. Oh, before I forget one of the cams were broken when the motor was torn down which Fred Banks orderd them to do before I even knew anything about this.

Well They show me a list of parts and labor that I have to pay about $2,200 or so. For waht I ask. The new service manager Kathy tells me its for a new oil pump,water pump, and so on and so on and for the head work that needs to be done. At this point I wanted to get a lawyer involved.

The next day they cut the labor and give me "cost" on the parts. They tried charging me for the cam. well the motor is finally together 8/8/2007.

Now once again they say I need to get a new clutch and flywheel.
I went there to take a look at it. The bolts that hold the pressure plate to the flywheel are messed up. The treds look as if there were crosstreaded or striped from being over tightened. I told them I was going to get a lawyer.

I told them I was not paying for a new clutch and flywheel and that it was installed improperly. She said that her nor fred banks will fork out another dime. I told her I should have never had to go through all this b/c it was a problem within wrnty. Kathy says she will split the cost of the clutch and flywheel with me. So I am going to go with the JWT.


I am so dissapointed with Pat Pec nissan and Nissan USA. I love my car but after all this it makes me regret getting it.

 

Get a lawyer. You should not have paid for anything extra other then the aftermarket parts you put in
Unfortunately though with no documentation you might fall into some probs
Consult a lawyer though for sure.
i would be flaming like you cannot imagine. i would be banned from the dealer for death threats.

 

i can't believe i just read all that. you sound like a real pain in the ***, to be honest. most dealerships don't even deal with installing aftermarket parts, you expected them to give you any sort of warranty on them?

 

Holy Crap, that sound like the most $hite I have ever seen one person go through with their car. Its just a damn shame that people try to screw you, but you should always get documentation. I got ripped when someone installing my turbo on the eclipse I had cut the wires to my o2 sensore and "forgot" to replace some gasket and charged me for a check engine light check after screwing up my car. F all the in-honest SOBs who try to rip you off.

 

they will if its a clutch replacement. They usually give you the option if you want to bring your own clutch in if the tranny is off.
If they **** up the install though. They should warranty it. Its their work and name on the line

 

I purchased the act clutch and flywheel from them. I would have been happy if they would have put a stock engine back in there. They did not want to wrnty anything on the car. Of corse I will be a payne in the *** when my car has been loosing oil since 50,000. or atleast thats when it was bad enought for me to notice it. the car has been up there forever. I had to buy another vehicle to get back and forth to work in.

 

Gee, first post and it's a rant. Virtually unreadable from all the spelling errors. Too many players to keep track of (who did what).

Good luck with the lawyer and trying to get it all sorted out.

 

sorry about my first post being so negative. I love the car, just wish nissan what have just fixed the car like they should have.

 

Nissan USA Consumer Affairs and Nissan Dealers SUCK ... i cant stand either one of them... I honestly believe that they dont value their customers AT ALL... BMW, Honda/Acura, ect. heck even Kia dealerships and CA help their customers out when needed... Nissan usually never budges, i mean cmon we are buying their product out of hundreds of other choices...
but we give in because they make a good car

 

It's not their name on the line when you put AM parts into their car. If they choose to be jerks about it, there is really no warranty if the car is modifed from OEM condition AT ALL, especially if the mods are in the same area that later failed.

If it fails right away due to poor install, that's one thing. If it fails in some manner 12k miles later, expecting Nissan to warranty it is a joke. It is such a fine line between "poorly installed" and "a bad fit". The bolts may have been X-threaded because it was a real b*tch to install. It's not Nissan's clutch or FW, installing it as a courtesy is normal but you cannot expect warranty on the clutch itself, no way - FW, maybe if it is demonstrably mangled by the installer. Stillen is no guarantee of quality, either - I have bought a lot from them over the years and sometimes quality control hasn't been great.

I think after reading through that tale of woe, Nissan at least met you halfway when they could have really been ****** and said "tough" on nearly every problem. A lawyer isn't going to fix these problems unless you're willing to drag things out in court with NNA and risk losing anyway, or ending up with not much more of a settlement than you've already been allotted. Lemon law in most states won't apply, either. W/o docs? Don't even bother with the lawyer, just wasting $$$.

Also putting in a clutch with a much heavier clamping force, as is normal, will likely void any transmission and possibly even engine warranty. Depends on who you're dealing with. I have a JWT clutch and FW with 4x the clamping force of the stock clutch in my G Coupe, it's engagement is so much more positive they could easily argue I'm putting more sudden load on the transmission, the OEM clutch slips more before it bites.

Guessing that your motor already had the ring wear early on with the prior owner. If you didn't have docs, I can't believe Nissan would warranty the motor for oil consumption problems, either w/o extensive documentation that the service intervals have been followed and their recommended viscosity used, etc. The prior owner could have run it 10 or 15k miles between changes for all you know, and never checked or changed the trans fluid or diff, either (all of which are on the 30k mile service at least).

I wouldn't have paid even $5k for a used one with those miles unless I set aside another $5-10k and accepted that the motor and trans may just bite the dust - you never really know how well it was treated. I the case of ring wear, a compression check before purchase may have been a sign that car was not the one to buy. I have a friend right now looking at a used 2004 Base 350Z - I told him I would never, ever buy a used 2003 or 2004 even with full service docs, due to the stack of TSB's I had for mine (2003, took delivery Nov 2002), its crappy brakes, grease streaks, rocking drivers' seat, transmission grinding in 3rd badly and 5th somewhat, front compression rod problem, gas tank hose recall, OEM tires so soft they were toast by 11k miles; it's a long list of which those problems are less than half.

Worst of all, and seemingly incurable, the dreaded TIRE FEATHERING at 5k miles and until I sold the car to a dealer with about 12k miles on it. Just look at these tires "post-side-to-side-swap at ~5k miles - I told my friend he couldn't afford the maintenance on the Base 350Z if he planned to drive it hard in stock trim, no way.

 

You lost me when you got to the new motor part.

 

It's always rough getting a company to pay for things like that but that doesn't necessarily sound like a cut and dry case. I had my passenger side window motor go out under factory warranty and Nissan replaced it. A year and 2 days later the replacement motor went out. My car is pretty modified but nothing to do with the window motors and Nissan covered that for me no problem. In that situation, it was obviously the window motors so they covered it and took care of their problem. In your case, there are so many miles and so many different parts that it sounds like it can't be as easy for Nissan to just say "we'll cover it." The dealership does sound pretty shady and that's why I try not to have dealerships touch my car because I don't trust them.

 

At this point you might as well trade it in the dealership for a new one. If they try and give you crap about the trade-in (like, "it's grinding so we will only give you xxx") then you have them in a trap. The loss from the trade sounds like it would be well worth passing the problem onto someone else. At least then, the new owner would have a 30 warranty. Though I really wish it was just fixed in the first place.

Lesson here is to get everything in writing and recored all conversations. That way you have a record you can post on consumerist.com. The outrage tends to get people to honor their words.

 

Once you put ANY aftermarket part on your car, the warranty is VOID.

Because the car, I mean the whole car, was not designed according to your aftermarket part.

And this is the reason/ excuse of the manufacture/dealer of not giving any warranty to your car.

Unless, the part is certified by the car manufacture, such as NISMO part.

Even for engine oil, anything.

You think it's insane?? Please check the Owner's Manuel.

Car dealership doesn't mean any protection, they'll just like a regular mechanic but with the "NISSAN" tag on their uniform.

 

It's only voided IF the aftermarket part is what caused the problem. If you put headers on your car but something goes wrong with the transmission, that part most likely has nothing to do with the tranny problem and they will take a look at it. My father has been a Toyota mechanic for over 32 years and I've seen it all. Hell they had a 500whp Supra come in with a fuqed up block and they still warrantied it because the block actually had stock internals. (That incident was obviously several years ago).

Btw, I'm sorry to hear about your misfortune and in all honesty with that many problems I'd just get rid of that particular Z and get a newer one. I did something similar purchasing mine, problems were extremely minor compared to these, and the dealer I got it from nor Nissan would take care of it. Ended up having to go threw my dad to get parts and then did the labor ourselves.....Always get documentation and thoroughly check the car before purchasing!

 

I see a bright future in your new job as a typical auto service manager.

 

Best of luck you dude! Dealerships are unbeleavable. It is a shame.

 

If they advertise the 60,000 mi wrnty then they should honer it. As far as aftermarket parts go, they are the ones that offered and sold them to me.

 

stfu if you don't know what you're talking about. the dealership has to prove that your aftermarket part is what caused the specific problem you've taken your car in for, and then the warranty for just THAT problem/part is voided. they can't just void your entire fuccing warranty if, for instance, you install an aftermarket oil cap or antenna. wtf. think before you type.

 

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