Dealer's Tire Feathering Response
 

For those of you who have seen tire feathering damage and have taken it to the dealer, what has the dealer's response been to you?

ahhaha...dealer response. My dealers responce was this.

I take the car in to get it aligned. At the sametime there is a "nissan tech rep" there. This is the same guy who interviewed me a couple of weeks after i took delivery of the car. He said that nissan knows of a "feathering" issue and that they suggest the following:
1. Align the car(duh)
2. Dismount the right and left tires then swap them. So that the feathering is now on the outside of the tire. With time, he said that the feathering will slowly wear off. ( great, by then i'll need new tires)

Can you believe this? The car only has 5000 miles, and this genius tells the dealership to just swap the tires. Of coarse it will stop the feathering. But the tires still howl and send vibrations though the car. The best part was that the dealership didn't have a machiine to fit the 18" rims on for the alignment. Tehy had to drive the car 9 miles to a Firestone shop. When i asked for the before and after alignment #'s.........they lost them.

So, needless to say, they didn't do anything. I'm really upset at the place. Right now i'm the process of writing to any consumer agency to tell them about Gerald Nissan of Naperville, IL . Come monday, i'll get in contact with my consumer affairs rep to figure out about my tires.


Dan:mad:

Unidirectional tires
 

I think all the 18 inch tires are unidirectional. If that is true, you can't pur a left on the right or vice-versa.

If they are unidirectional there will be an arrow on the sidewall to indicate the proper direction. If they are on backwards they are wrong and possibly unsafe.


I am not SURE they are all unidirecitonal, but the ones on the Z I test drove sure were. I saw the arrows.

Re: Unidirectional tires
 

you mean directional. yes they are. What they did was dismount the left tire, and put in on the right wheel and vice-verca. That way you don't lose the directional tread function of the tire.

Still, it's a cheap and lame ass way of "fixing" the problem.

dan

Dealer fixed toe-in problem. I called nissan. Nissan called my service dept. Service dept said Nissan wants me to swap tires L>R and R>L (demount and remount required fir uni-directional tires) See if noise and/or wear is any better after 200 miles. If not Nissan will replace the tires. Seems fair to me.

.

I didn't bother w/the dealer since I as I was replacing the OEs at 1600 miles. They were feathering, on the outside instead of the inside, at 1600 miles! I had already replaced them and drove to my dealer immediately and left a message for my service writer to align the wheels and address all the small problems, including the Bose, and made an app't for the next day. I brought it in and discussed all the probs w/him. He had the wheels aligned, got rid of the w/streak on passenger side, ordered replacement amp and radio for the Bose. They couldn't find the rear rattle, but will try again when the Bose stuff comes in. No muss or fuss, I'm a long-time customer and we don't bs each other.

They found a small dent/chip above the right rear wheelwell, fixed it w/my OK and charged me $30 for the dent. Couldn't find where they fixed the dent w/o searching, did a good job as usual.

Great Service!

I got interviewed by the Nissan rep last week and he also said the same thing about swapping the tires and to add insult to injury he said it was a sports car and tire wear was to be expected. It took all I had to keep my cool and say that I undertood that but not to have to replace uat under 5000 miles.

I called NNA and it has been 4 days and counting, I just keep getting calls that they are working on it. I got the Track Rays and was going to put them on with S03's anyway but I figured that the 17's are wearing and they should step up anyway not just let off the hook because I am going to change wheels. I think we paid enough and waited long enough that they should do right by us so don't let up.

Re: Re: Unidirectional tires
 

That only fixes the symptom and not the problem. Whatever causes the feathering won't simply go away, unless the alignment did it. This is pretty worrisome...

Yea, get this one. I went in today to show the problem to the dealer and he said that you could have it aligned, but that hasn't seemed to be the actual cause and the problem will only return. He suggests that I first call Nissan to complain to see if we can get them to do something about it like sending a regional technician down to examine the car. I'll keep you all posted.

You can try, I called Nissan Tuesday and nothing yet, as for the technician he just said to remove tires swap sides and remount, that wear should be expected in sports cars!!!!!!:icon6:

My car is at the dealership right now. They had ordered a new set of fronts. Cost listed to order the tires, get this, $500/ea. I asked the guy if he was sure that was not for two, and he said no and showed me the receipt. I guess that could be part of the hesitation.

But they are mounting the tires, doing the alignment, and reporting the findings back to Nissan Tech. These were the instructions from Nissan Tech.

Westpak-

Did you talk to NNA and tell them what a schmuck of a Tech you were interviewed by? My dealership initially said the same thing. But then I showed them exactly how bad it was and they were quick to work on a solution. High wear from large amounts of camber, I could almost understand, but excessive toe-in causing feathering in under 4800miles? Nope, not acceptable.

JD

That price sounds high, sounds like the dealer is making some money from Nissan, the S03's are 350 from Firestone/Bridgestone!!!

As for NNA I told them everything and this experience is just following on with the purchase experience, I guess that signing up 7 months ahead of time and ordering a car sight unseen doesn't mean much, I am not holding my breath and I am going to buy the tires I want and God help the dealer and Nissan if those go bad as well that alignment better have fixed it.