I have been considering getting a new vehicle for a while. Cash for Clunkers came and I looked at several vehicles, but under the clunkers program, my trade was only worth $3,500. There were two reasons this made me mad: I thought my truck was worth a bit more than that, but nobody wanted to talk trade; and, I believed I should have gotten the higher $4,500 amount in the CforC deal.
In Cash for Clunkers, if you turned in a truck and got another truck that got 2 mpg better, you got $4500. My SUV (which was rated at 16 mpg) was termed a passenger vehicle so I had to get 10 mpg better with the new vehicle. The vehicle I was looking at hardest "only" got 8 mpg better - so, my truck passenger vehicle was not worth as much to the government (never mind that I drive about 25,000 miles per year - which would result in a massive reduction in gas usage - one of the "goals" of the program).
Since then, I've been thinking about getting a lot of the problems that the NIssan had taken care of. In fact, I had an appointment to replace the timing belt (supposed to be replaced at 105,000 miles - I stretched it to 120,000). This is not small money, so to do so meant I was making a commitment to keep the truck for a while to come.
Last Thursday I went to Walmart in Concord. When I came out, I jumped in the truck passenger vehicle and turned the key.
NOTHING
Okay, I had lights, but the starter didn't even make that annoying whirring sound that comes about when a battery is low on charge. Well, that makes sense because if you recall from the previous post - I had to replace the battery last year.
I called WS, who works in Concord, and he came to take a look at it. He cleaned terminals and checked connections, but nothing helped. Finally, he pounded on the startedr, and we could at least get it to "click" when I turned the key. That was something and gave us hope that we could get it started and not have to have it towed.
WS went back to work to get a tow chain, then came and towed me around the parking lot until I could get it started (the massively good thing about standard transmissions is that if you can get the vehicle to roll, you can probably get it to start).
I got the truck passenger vehicle to Hillsboro VIP where I proceeded to learn that they didn't stock that starter and couldn't get one that day. I left it there in hopes that they would be able to find one on Saturday. As our luck would have it, nope, they couldn't find one, so they got the truck passenger vehicle started and I drove it home. I called the Nissan dealer and found out that a starter cost $450 - whew, they have gotten expensive!
Sunday, I took it to the Nissan dealer (where it had its Monday appointment for the timing belt) and told the saleskid there that I was looking at getting a new vehicle. I also said that my truck needed a starter and I had an appointment for it on Monday but if I had to pay for the starter, I wouldn't be getting a new vehicle from them. I drove another Xterra, that was really bare-bones (my Xterra wasn't anything fancy, but it had a couple of map lights). We could not come to terms on price, nor would they give me more than $3500 for my vehicle. I had thought that I could probably get the best trade in at Nissan, but apparently they know what pieces of crap they are and don't want them back!
So, Monday I called the service department and told them to diagnose the starting problem, but to forget the timing belt. They called back later with the news that it was the starter (duh), which I told them to fix. He then started to tell me that they had "found" a couple of other items, to which I interupted that I wasn't going to be fixing anything else.
When I picked up the vehicle later that day, they gave me a 3 page (front and back) description of problems they had found and the cost to correct them. They came up with $5,800 worth of stuff (the sad part is, the list pretty much mirrored everything I already knew was wrong). The best part was that they didn't even mention the airbag sensor or the check engine light. Oh, and I haven't even mentioned that I started having trouble with the 4 WD a couple of weeks ago. It's not evident until switching between 2WD and 4WD, so they wouldn't have known to include that (so between those 3 things, the total would have been at least $1200 more).
After reading thru the dissertation from the dealer, I came away with something that really Pissed me off - remember the air conditioning problem (last post)? Somehow without any testing or dye in the lines, they came up with an exact diagnoses of the problem - with just a very basic diagnostic equipment; there is a leak in the high pressure hose and FOUND CONDENSER ROTTED (in caps because that is how they presented it). I would think that that is pretty much a visual item - that they should have been able to figure that out last summer. But nooooo, they wanted $110 to charge the system with dye, then have me come back later.
That reminded me that every time I took the truck passenger vehicle in for service in 2008, I was told I needed brakes. In December, the dealer sent out a book of coupons, one of which was for brake work. I made an appointment specifically to have the brakes done, and they said that the brakes were fine. They refused to do the work, but were happy to charge me $90 to "diagnose" that I didn't need brakes. It didn't even phase them that I had previous paperwork that said I needed brakes.
Anyway, Never Ever will I do business with Team Nissan of Manchester NH again!
So, I have established that my Nissan Xterra is a piece of crap (in the previous post) and, I have established that Team Nissan is a Shifty Dealer!
So in essence, I have extablished that getting that Xterra at Team Nissan, was the biggest mistake I have ever made (vehicle wise).
Comments