Nissan, what a shower

piaget

Hi Guys,
Need to vent some anger here, my 2006 Nissan Tino is 6 weeks out of warranty and guess what - the interior driver's side door handle snapped during the week (replacement cost €60 for a bit of coated plastic). I had a few annoying faults on this car to date. The garage asked for a gesture of goodwill for the cost from Nissan Ireland. The response was no way, the car is out of warranty.

Now this car only brings the kids to school, has 25,000km on the clock and sat in the Nissan compound for over a year before I took delivery so its not exactly had a hard life.

I then ring Nissan direct and get through to this complete obnoxious robot in the warranty section who even though agrees the handle should'nt have gone I have to pay for it myself, tough luck they have my money and do'nt care as its not a high value repair and not a known fault.

Told him I would never consider buying another Nissan again and I will tell everybody else my experience and how did he expect to sell cars in this market with that sort of customer care attitude. So what was basically the response.

Ahh, feel better now but this has put me off Nissan for life. Sorry for the rant.

Alanstrainor

It's not like the engine exploded. It's 60 quid...it probably shouldn't have happened, but it's out of warranty so they don't have to do anything.

Drummerboy08

Why should they pay for something on a car thats out of warranty?

The agreement made when you bought the car, was that there would be a two year warranty when you bought it. I bet they covered whatever claims were put in when it was under warranty?

I would also imagine that something like a door handle would be a wear and tear item - as its obviously used every time you get into, and out of your car.

I dont really think Nissan are doing that much wrong. However, if it was me, I would have just given you the €60 door handle to prevent this thread from happening, and to get you off the phone.

piaget

Would agree that its a war and tear item but surely not after so little use. The Mazda I had before this was bullet proof compared to this so far, granted there's a lot more electrics on the Nissan.

smash

Jesus, it's a plastic handle... plastic breaks!

After 25,000km how many times do you think it's been used?

Drummerboy08

piaget wrote: »

Would agree that its a war and tear item but surely not after so little use. The Mazda I had before this was bullet proof compared to this so far, granted there's a lot more electrics on the Nissan.

It's a 3 year old car, with 25000kms on it.

So, if its only used to bring the kids to school, we'll call it a 20km round trip. That involves you getting in once, and out once (at least) every 20km.

25000kms/20km = 1250 trips.
1250*2=2500

Going on the above, the door handle has been used at least two thousand, five hundred times. I think I'm being quite generous on the distance to school, and the lack of other trips too.

Still think it hasnt been used that much?

stealthyspeeder

Bit harsh OP!! it was out of warrenty and something broke! get over it, its a very inexpensive part compared with what could break!

And as for not considering a car company for any future purchase cause a bit of plastic broke....

just lol!

I remeber reading a TVR owner posting that he loved his Griffith more than any car in the world and thought TVR were the best car company ever.. and then mentioning at the end of his post that he also wished TVR's came with a small little car in the boot that you could use when your TVR broke down in the middle of nowhere!

Drummerboy08

piaget wrote: »

I then ring Nissan direct and get through to this complete obnoxious robot

Actually, I think I know him!





This the guy?

david

Calm down it's only a door handle. Do you really need to get worked up over €60?

Life's too short tbh

Hellrazer

It actually amazes me that some people think their car should be invincible.

Im with drummerboy on this.Its a plastic handle worth 60 quid--its not like the engine blew up or anything.Just go and pay for it to be fixed.


But heres one for you.

I once had a customer who wrapped their car around a tree--bonnet,bumper,headlights and claimed it was "covered under its 3 year warranty"

This bloke rang the head office of the franchise and Im told he even sued the manufacturer and lost in both cases.

Guy:Incognito

You could just pick one up in a scrapyard for about €15. Hardly the end of the world.

Drummerboy08

Hellrazer wrote: »

It actually amazes me that some people think their car should be invincible.

Im with drummerboy on this.Its a plastic handle worth 60 quid--its not like the engine blew up or anything.Just go and pay for it to be fixed.


But heres one for you.

I once had a customer who wrapped their car around a tree--bonnet,bumper,headlights and claimed it was "covered under its 3 year warranty"

This bloke rang the head office of the franchise and Im told he even sued the manufacturer and lost in both cases.

:eek:

I had one guy think his tyres were replacable under warranty!

Hellrazer

Drummerboy08 wrote: »

:eek:

I had one guy think his tyres were replacable under warranty!

Ive had that aswell.I was also assaulted by a customer because I told him his wiper blades werent covered.Had it all on camera and when I played it back to him he backed off quite quickly.

Theres some nut jobs out there that own cars.

maidhc

Drummerboy08 wrote: »

Going on the above, the door handle has been used at least two thousand, five hundred times. I think I'm being quite generous on the distance to school, and the lack of other trips too.

Still think it hasnt been used that much?

2500 times for a handle isn't much... It is nothing. Imagine how many times the handles on the old corolla taxis have been opened!


It is stupid of Nissan not to replace it and to irritate a customer over such a small thing, especially when the car is just out of warranty. I would be annoyed to be honest.

colm_mcm

This seems so apt right now

KamiKazi

Jesus, I'd hate to have seen your reaction if a turbo blew or something

martinr5232

Very poor customer relations really 25k is only a first service interval on a lot of cars.

For those people who think the OP should just pay for this would they pay an extra sixty quid on top of their service for a new door handle every time they get a car serviced?

OP go to Nissan customer care and if nothing else let them know your not happy with the service you recieved from their warranty dept you will get your door handle replaced.

galwaytt

...people need to take a step back.

I agree the handle is a small thing. I do not agree however, that the OP was wrong in expecting a bit of flexibility on this - if not from Nissan, then certainly the dealer.

I also think Eur 60 is rip-off for a mass-produced piece of plastic worth........Eur3 or Eur 4.....

As for 3 years/25000kms / 2500 times using the handle/whatever - that is way, way, way below the expected lifetime of that component. I just did a mental tot on my car: the handle gets used, on average, 10 times a day. Even filtering out a few days of non, or low, use, that's 2700 times A YEAR.

Given the fact that the car is now 16 years old, has 155,000 miles on it, and it's still on it's original one, I don't think it's stretching to say the Nissan has failed prematurely.

HashSlinging

Did you try the breakers yard, you might be able to get it a bit cheaper yourself..

Bluefoam

Does €60 include fitting. Fairly good value if so. There are 101 reasons a handle might fail early, such as mistreatment or harsh usage. The manufacturers have sophisticated computer systems that track warranty repairs, its not to easy to just charge money to a warranty that's out of date and pay the garage for labour. It would be more hassle than its worth. I would suggest the OP apologise to Nissan for being such a difficult person and send them a nice card by way of making amends...

Drummerboy08

galwaytt wrote: »

...people need to take a step back.

I agree the handle is a small thing. I do not agree however, that the OP was wrong in expecting a bit of flexibility on this - if not from Nissan, then certainly the dealer.

I also think Eur 60 is rip-off for a mass-produced piece of plastic worth........Eur3 or Eur 4.....

As for 3 years/25000kms / 2500 times using the handle/whatever - that is way, way, way below the expected lifetime of that component. I just did a mental tot on my car: the handle gets used, on average, 10 times a day. Even filtering out a few days of non, or low, use, that's 2700 times A YEAR.

Given the fact that the car is now 16 years old, has 155,000 miles on it, and it's still on it's original one, I don't think it's stretching to say the Nissan has failed prematurely.

Yes, but we also dont know all of the circumstances. The OP could have hands like shovels, and could be a professional wrestler for all we know. A person like that will be a lot harder on the handle than a 70 year old OAP.

In saying that, He could be going very easy on it. We just dont know. Its just strange that it isnt a known issue on these cars.

daveharnett

I'm with the OP on this. Unless the car is generally showing signs of catastrophic abuse, then it's reasonable to conclude that the part failed well before it's time.

It would seem good business sense for the dealer to offer the part for cost price and fit it for free. It's a very expensive 60 yoyos if it costs them a repeat customer.

JHMEG

Drummerboy08 wrote: »

Going on the above, the door handle has been used at least two thousand, five hundred times. I think I'm being quite generous on the distance to school, and the lack of other trips too.

Still think it hasnt been used that much?

2500 is nothing. It has probably been specced to last a minimum of 100,000 cycles and therefore the life of the car.

Nissan should probably have offered the part for free.

Drummerboy08

JHMEG wrote: »

2500 is nothing. It has probably been specced to last a minimum of 100,000 cycles and therefore the life of the car.

Nissan should probably have offered the part for free.

If i was in Nissan i would, but at the end of the day, the car was out of warranty. There is no obligation to do so at the end of the day.

Its unusual to say no to warranty on a €60 item, so is there anything else to this story that we are not hearing?

JHMEG

Drummerboy08 wrote: »

, so is there anything else to this story that we are not hearing?

Why suspect there is? It looks simply like part broke that shouldn't have.

Raiser

Hellrazer wrote: »

It actually amazes me that some people think their car should be invincible.

Im with drummerboy on this.Its a plastic handle worth 60 quid--its not like the engine blew up or anything.Just go and pay for it to be fixed.


But heres one for you.

I once had a customer who wrapped their car around a tree--bonnet,bumper,headlights and claimed it was "covered under its 3 year warranty"

This bloke rang the head office of the franchise and Im told he even sued the manufacturer and lost in both cases.

Go buy that handle off Nissan - it'll be presented to you in a little, plain brown cardboard box - Congratulations!!!

But if you can then somehow bring it to that same shítty little box, complete with its crappy little, mindlessly mass produced plastic handle anywhere beyond 100 Metres of a Car Dealership and find someone who thinks its worth more than €1 or €2 I'd be shocked :rolleyes:

Now I know that Japanese plastic Tradesmen are chosen at birth and spend years perfecting and honing their craft - But in fairness most of those piss poor plastic crappy parts are spat out of a machine at a rate of several thousand an hour.

- €60 for 3" of plastic - thats Alchemy.

Sorry - Have to edit in an afterthought! I honestly believe that the broken handle that sparked this thread was flawed on manufacture..... And am fairly sure that the replacement handle is a prime candidate for snapping within an equivalent timeframe also.

- Finally (I promise) have you ever seen the prices the scrapyards will escalate to once they smell blood in the water?

Lube up Boy.....

Drummerboy08

JHMEG wrote: »

Why suspect there is? It looks simply like part broke that shouldn't have.

Because door handles just dont "break". Of all the cars i've driven and owned, i've never experienced it. Of all the cars that pass through my office everyday, i've never experienced it.

I'm not saying the OP broke it by not using it how it was designed to be used, but I'm just approaching this with an open mind to every possibbility. I've already stated that if it were my decision, i'd just give it to him as a goodwill gesture. But this is what is making me ask questions.

Why didn't Nisssan give the part to the OP under warranty or as a gesture
of goodwill? For €60, it would keep the punter happy, and off the phone to you. Has the OP's car had this part fail before? Or have Nissan already inspected the part and decided that it was driver dynamics that caused it to fail?


Anyhow, good luck to you OP, hope you got it sorted.

JHMEG

Drummerboy08 wrote: »

Because door handles just dont "break".

It's only a door handle.. There is a first time for everything.

maidhc

Drummerboy08 wrote: »

Yes, but we also dont know all of the circumstances. The OP could have hands like shovels, and could be a professional wrestler for all we know. A person like that will be a lot harder on the handle than a 70 year old OAP.

You can easily forgive an italian sportscar for having brittle door handles, but not a Nissan babywagon. The car serves no purpose other than the carry people from A-B. If the door handle is not strong enough to suspend a 3 year old and resist Labrador attack for 30 mins, then Nissan should re-evaluate the design.

JHMEG

maidhc wrote: »

You can easily forgive an italian sportscar for having brittle door handles, but not a Nissan babywagon. The car serves no purpose other than the carry people from A-B. If the door handle is not strong enough to suspend a 3 year old and resist Labrador attack for 30 mins, then Nissan should re-evaluate the design.

Maybe the OP was using the unofficial launch control? I've heard the door handle can only withstand 10 launches before it's fubarred and as a result Nissan have updated the ECU software and specifically removed door handles from the warranty.

Raiser

Goodwill gestures, once properly evaluated, shouldn't lose any Individual, Business or Company money on the grand scale of things - Irish* people are usually beyond grateful for a gesture and will tell the dogs on the streets if they're gotten "something for nothing"

Right now Nissan is seriously losing face, reputation and confidence over a "€60" door handle worth 60 cents - I know I've taken note.

- Its tough times out there now and not all of the Dealerships are going to go to the wall.... But in the grim survival stakes my money would go on the ones that are willing to take care of their Customers.

Anyway - seeing as they've acted properly at all times and wholly within the rules of the game OP - would you care to name and shame blame identify?

* Irish People seem to invite crap services, goods, and general treatment upon themselves by being just another Idiot with a wallet

Fishtits

Piss poor decision by Nissan IMHO. For a pittance they could have retained a customer, regardless of the circumstances that led to its failure.

Bottom line, they've lost the sale of a new car out of this.

Similar story, one of fishtits relatives had a Merc M class develop a problem three weeks outside warranty, they sent him a bill of 4500.

Not only did he refuse to pay the bill, he changed his fleet of 11 Merc vans, and the offending M class within a month.

Sometimes it pays to be flexible...

Slidey

Nissan are not renowned for after sales care.

There was the case of the engine failing in the pre 06 Navara, loads of them put the conrod through the side of the block.

It was ages before Nissan held their hands up. I did a quick search for a forum set up just on the basis of the engine failure but cant find it now.

Here is one link

Drummerboy08

maidhc wrote: »

You can easily forgive an italian sportscar for having brittle door handles, but not a Nissan babywagon. The car serves no purpose other than the carry people from A-B. If the door handle is not strong enough to suspend a 3 year old and resist Labrador attack for 30 mins, then Nissan should re-evaluate the design.

But thats my point exactly. I work in the Nissan Ireland building (for a different company) and I have yet to see any door handles or Nissan Tino's in with the warranty dept for this problem.

If its not happening on alot of other Tino's, its obviously not a design flaw. Which is why im asking how did the handle break? I'm just asking the questions that the warranty dept would be asking too. No need to be so defensive over it!

CJhaughey

Slidey wrote: »

Nissan are not renowned for after sales care.

There was the case of the engine failing in the pre 06 Navara, loads of them put the conrod through the side of the block.

It was ages before Nissan held their hands up. I did a quick search for a forum set up just on the basis of the engine failure but cant find it now.

Here is one link

You'd be thinking of this website

maidhc

Drummerboy08 wrote: »

But thats my point exactly. I work in the Nissan Ireland building (for a different company) and I have yet to see any door handles or Nissan Tino's in with the warranty dept for this problem.

If its not happening on alot of other Tino's, its obviously not a design flaw. Which is why im asking how did the handle break? I'm just asking the questions that the warranty dept would be asking too. No need to be so defensive over it!

But sometimes things just break...!

cc

6 weeks is very close to warrenty, they should of least offered 20% off the part as a gesture or something like that, the goowill alone could be worth the customer buying a new Nissan a few years down the line. My other half's yaris fuel pump started leaking 2 months out of warrenty and Toyota has no problem replacing it free of charge, and they said they would do it free even before i had a chance to ask them if there was anything they could do for us..

Drummerboy08

maidhc wrote: »

But sometimes things just break...!

Exactly. So why should someone else pay for something that "just broke" on your car??!

robtri

I have to admit, I am amazed at some people, I am not aware of any other business that does as much in general for customers as the car industry.. and yet keep getting slated for it....

a part broke outside of warranty.... I am sorry but build a bridge and get over it.

You bought a car, and when you bought it you where told the exact warranty period, you agreed to this at the time..
so you knew if anything happened (exclusions omitted) you where covered up to a point... and then you compalin afterwards that they didn't cover something that more than likely you broke.....
honestly why would you expect more....

BigEejit

Something like a car door handle must be designed for the stress of a person pulling on it. ANY person, whether they have hands like shovels, claw hammers or babies hands. If one broke at this relatively early stage then it indicates that there is something wrong with the particular part in that car.

Regardless, it was flipping stupid of them to not make the gesture with a cheap part like this, they have lost a customer for good ... lost a lot more than 60 eurons.

Bluefoam

Its only boody €60, get over it. Its not their responsibility - YOU BROKE IT!

piaget

Thanks to everyone for all the comments. I’d just like to clarify a few issues firstly – normally I would be the first to say it could have been a lot worse and it was only €60 but this just really cheesed me off. The car is usually driven by my wife during the week and me at weekends, she doesn’t have hands like shovels nor is she a professional wrestler and is actually quite gentle with the car. The car has only had one repair under warranty for a faulty seatbelt sensor so I don’t think I was milking the warranty.

We noticed on Wednesday last that the driver’s side door would not open from the inside, you had to wind down the window and open from the outside, according to the garage a small piece of plastic snapped off the inside of the interior hand and lodged in the mechanism, this was removed and everything worked again as should, however the garage told us this was only a temporary fix and a new handle should be installed on Thursday hence the €60.

I knew the warranty had expired so did’nt think I would get the repair for free but I did expect some gesture of goodwill from Nissan (their records show warranty expired on the 28th July) given that a part like this should be expected to last a lot longer than 2 years driving. The garage did take 25% from the part cost which was about €7. I do think Nissan Ireland have shown poor customer service in this instance.

What disappoints me most is that the car is not wearing as well as I expected especially the interior compared to other cars we had (Ford, Mazda) or even compared to previous generation Nissan’s. I still stand over my decision not to consider another Nissan, there are too many other manufacturers to just return to one whom you feel didn’t support you. However I would be interested in other Nissan owners experiences to see if they have been happy overall.

enda1

Bluefoam wrote: »

Its only boody €60, get over it. Its not their responsibility - YOU BROKE IT!

Whether or not it is their responsibility is debatable.

A court would have to decide. As most people would believe (I think) that a door handle is not a disposable item and not an overly complex item where the cause of failure and mechanism of failure is difficult to assess, then I believe a court would rule that Nissan must replace at their cost the item. However, if Nissan push the issue you would have to go all the way to the courts to decide.

So OP. Any chance you can take some photos of the broken handle? Put them up here, in particular the material print stamp on the reverse and I'll give an educated guess on who's at fault - Customer, OEM or Supplier (<-- therefore OEM).

This is more common than people believe by the way, I've seen it on other vehicles.

This vehicle is out of production and was produced in Spain.

A car being out of production and having to request a spare part for a component can be very costly. Imagine for example:

Maybe the injection mould to produce this part contains 8 parts.
This part will be rarely replaced and as Nissan work on a JIT production system, stock will be kept at minimum - therefore their parts supply centre probably wont have any of the parts in stock or even if they do they then will have to contact their supplier to replenish. So suppliers quote for production of the parts looking at the the whole life of their production. This means sometimes to get business they will under quote on vehicle production life production cost and over quote on end of life production cost because the buying department of the OEM will be most concerned on the vehicle profitability. So the cost to produce a part in end of life can be astronomical compared to the in life cost. This is not too ridiculous either though because the effort required to change over tool, change material etc. just for a low production run is very high.

So €7 for the part is actually not high at all I believe. Whereas the labour to replace is crazy!

Most likely the part is a push on connection, easy to get on hard to get off. So if you can remove the current one and buy a new one, the replacement can be done by you at no labour cost.


As an aside, the part will be speced for a very high number of life cycles, above 100,000, and to a strength of maybe 100kfg force at tip in z, 50kg in other axes. So 2500 sounds like poor quality manufacturing - poorly quality assured part or else misuse...

Bluefoam

enda1 wrote: »

Whether or not it is their responsibility is debatable.

A court would have to decide. As most people would believe (I think) that a door handle is not a disposable item and not an overly complex item where the cause of failure and mechanism of failure is difficult to assess, then I believe a court would rule that Nissan must replace at their cost the item. However, if Nissan push the issue you would have to go all the way to the courts to decide.

The car is out of warranty - it is no longer the responsibility of the manufacturer - they have completed their end of the agreement - any court would stike this case out. It is the OPs car and their responsibility. By your comment - I should be able to buy a mug in tescos and if it chips after a year I should be able to bring it back and have it repaired... Its just a bizarre nonsensical idea, with no basis in reality...

enda1 wrote: »

So OP. Any chance you can take some photos of the broken handle? Put them up here, in particular the material print stamp on the reverse and I'll give an educated guess on who's at fault - Customer, OEM or Supplier (<-- therefore OEM).

If the OP wants to apportion blame, they can get a private assessor ( at their own expense) to evaluate the problem. However this would be a waste of time as the even if it was discovered that the handle was not damaged by misuse, the car is still out of warranty and the manufacturer has no responsibility whatsoever to fix it...


I certainly wouldn't accept the opinion of some random internet person making judgements on things he is not qualified to comment on - based on a photo...

piaget

So OP. Any chance you can take some photos of the broken handle? Put them up here, in particular the material print stamp on the reverse and I'll give an educated guess on who's at fault - Customer, OEM or Supplier (<-- therefore OEM).

This is more common than people believe by the way, I've seen it on other vehicles.

..

Sorry Enda no photo of the part but identical to ones in almeras. I wont be going near any court or solicitor for this but I do think that a door handle to break on a car that's 2 year's on the road is a premature failure and not specced fit for purpose.

OldmanMondeo

Jasus lads, the crank shaft pully is on the way out on my car, which means the car can be hard to start. The car was just outside of qwarrenty when the problem arose, I didn't think twice about asking Ford to fix it, and I still won't. Warrent is up, any problems now are mine to sort, it sucks but thats life.

enda1

Bluefoam wrote: »

The car is out of warranty - it is no longer the responsibility of the manufacturer - they have completed their end of the agreement - any court would stike this case out. It is the OPs car and their responsibility. By your comment - I should be able to buy a mug in tescos and if it chips after a year I should be able to bring it back and have it repaired... Its just a bizarre nonsensical idea, with no basis in reality...

If the OP wants to apportion blame, they can get a private assessor ( at their own expense) to evaluate the problem. However this would be a waste of time as the even if it was discovered that the handle was not damaged by misuse, the car is still out of warranty and the manufacturer has no responsibility whatsoever to fix it...


I certainly wouldn't accept the opinion of some random internet person making judgements on things he is not qualified to comment on - based on a photo...

I am qualified to comment on it.
But my opinion as some guy on the internet of course holds no water, I never suggested it did buit I am curious to see the failure.

Lots of goods don't have warranty or guarantees. These are just extra protections supplied by OEM's to customers to give them better peace of mind and less hassle. Normal consumer protection laws apply still however - which still covers vehicles. So, as I said it would have to be determined in a court whether or not the car was @not fit for the purspose intended@ etc. under consumer law.

Why are you getting so worked up over it?

enda1

piaget wrote: »

Sorry Enda no photo of the part but identical to ones in almeras. I wont be going near any court or solicitor for this but I do think that a door handle to break on a car that's 2 year's on the road is a premature failure and not specced fit for purpose.

I would go near the legal side either. Just unfortunate Nissan don't value their customers, best way to complain is with your feet to be honest!

Drummerboy08

How exactly are you qualified Enda1? Just curious.

Bluefoam

enda1 wrote: »

I am qualified to comment on it.

are you suggesting that (as an alleged professional) you would be happy to make an assessment based on a picture posted on the net?

enda1 wrote: »

Normal consumer protection laws apply still however

no they don't - these expire just like everything else & do not continue indefinitely - usually the manufacturers warranty exceeds that of the legal requirement....

enda1 wrote: »

So, as I said it would have to be determined in a court whether or not the car was @not fit for the purpose intended@ etc. under consumer law.

no it wouldn't, the car is out of warranty

enda1 wrote: »

Why are you getting so worked up over it?

because you are talking through your hole

Raiser

Each to their own - If you have particularity low expectations and a dull sense of justice then you are lucky as you'll rarely be disappointed

- Bluefoamingatthemouth please calm down; So not everyone on the InterWeb respects your odd views as much as you'd like.......