The Nissan Path

Besides finding out that mine is having the transmission issues, I have found a few other small things that I wasn't really worried about. I have a creaking noise at full lock that I suspect is a ball joint, and a few days ago it started to make a "worn pad" grinding noise.
...despite it just passing a safety inspection.
A little ticked, I booked an appointment for next monday to have the brakes done.

I never made it there. On the way to mothers day brunch I heard a loud noise, followed by my dash lighting up like a christmas tree and a soft brake pedal.
Coasted to the side of the road, and immediately saw there was brake fluid all over the drivers back wheel.

It's hard to tell from just rolling in the dirt, but it looks like the back of the caliper is gone. I had it towed to the dealer for a thorough once-over, and having a long hard talk from the used car dealer I bought it from.



I broke down just a bit past a gas station. The wife took a cab and picked up our brunch to-go from the restaurant.




When you buy a lemon, make lemonade. Or, buy lemonade at the drive-through window.

Sorry to hear about your experiance lately but just keep your head up. Everything will get better. When my tranny went out I thought it was the end of the world but we got things worked out.

Update! And it's quite a good one.

So the weekend after I had it dropped off at the dealer was one full of revelations. After the Nissan dealer had a look at it, they called me up in disbelief asking me when I had last serviced the car. Considering I've only put 2500 kilometres on it, and I've barely owned it for a month ... I hadn't done anything.

It just recently passed a safety inspection before purchase.

Or... so we thought.
Nissan did a 100 point inspection on the car, and the results were jaw dropping.
On the drivers side rear, the pads had worn all the way through the material, and through the backing to such a degree that the pad came out entirely, and the piston pushed up against the disk, and sheared off, almost ripping the caliper apart in the process.
The pads on the other side weren't much better.
Same story on the front pads.
Both front lower balljoints were on the verge of separating by themselves, and there was significant play on one of the tie rods. The drivers side upper balljoint was "questionable".

In short - this car should never have even been on the road, let alone pass a safety just a few weeks ago.

Very reassuring to know, when I've been driving my family around in it.
Obviously this prompted some calls to several regulatory organizations.
However, in Canada I am obligated to give the shop that did the safety as well as the dealer that sold me the car a chance to rectify the situation.
I was lucky enough to have a good friend who is fully licensed himself to do safety inspections, and I had him take a long hard look, record all the evidence, and do most of the talking. As an insider he knew how to put the fear of god himself into them.

After I had them pick the car up, and tow it all the way to Toronto where they had a look, I received a call from the dealer I purchased the vehicle where the owner was profusely apologetic and promised to make everything right.

I picked the car up last friday, and everything is brand new. Disks and pads front and back, 2 new calipers in the back, front lower control arms with ball joints, and upper A-arm on the drivers side as well as a new tierod.
Considering that the lower arms are pricey, I think we're looking at about 2 grand worth of parts plus labor, and all it cost me was to almost get myself killed and $35 in tow charges.

I was a bit disappointed that I didn't get the car back washed and waxed with flowers for the wife. But what can ya do...

SETI20 wrote:But what can ya do...

Pay for a proper pre-purchase inspection next time! Lesson learned. Glad it's all getting fixed.

Did you read all of it? We did. Those safeties are supposed to be government regulated.

Government safety is no where near a decent mechanical pre purchase inspection by a mechanic you trust.

They are supposed to be the same. That said, I'm originally from Europe where this is controlled MUCH tighter, apparently.

Anyway, the government has been informed of this little snafu, and I've had the car re-inspected at the Nissan dealer again, and all seems well. Besides the fact that after dumping out all the ball joints and tie rods, they didn't deem it needed an alignment. So that pissed me off a bit.

Nissan is currently taking care of the radiator swap, and if the shudder in overdrive persists, we're getting a new transmission. I think we should be good for a few years, then. *crosses fingers*

Well. We're back. It took some doing.

After all the parts were fixed from the first post (brakes, balljoints, upper arms, tierods etc) we were finally able to do a test drive to analyze the 60kph shudder. Of course we already knew what it was after I had the trans flushed and with some help from this forum.

Nissan Canada took the step-by-step approach, and started off with a test drive, then several times a full transmission flush. And that's when they learned that a previous shop had already done the bypass. So it looks like the car was traded in because there was already the beginnings of problems. Nissan hoped that with flushing the trans several times, the issue would resolve itself.
It did not.

So up next was the radiator/cooler replacement, and flushing the trans several times again.
That did nothing.

There were a few more steps that they had to follow, like taking the trans out to inspect for debris etc, but at that point the tech was already sick of it and just ordered a brand new transmission.

Nissan did cover all the repairs over $2500. Total repair bill was $9800. They also provided me with a brand new loaner for the duration of these 3 (THREE!) weeks, while waiting for parts, and fitting this in to the already busy schedule of this dealership.

In the end, even though it cost me a chunk of change, they really did take care of this for me from start to finish. I have seen horror stories with people having to fight with Nissan headquarters and dealerships to get this done. but all I did was drop off the keys and put in a few calls asking for updates. They took care of the whole warranty process for me.
Once we've forgotten about the pain of the cost, we now have a truck that has 10 grand worth of parts put in that I did not pay for. All with dealership paperwork.
Hope at least that helps with the resale value, lol.