eksigned

iTrader: (1)

dealt with infiniti consumer affairs two years ago when dealing with a repurchase of my 2010 sedan. they respond VERY well to lawsuit threats and lawyers. not entirely sure if you have what is needed to build some sort of case, but i walked in with my attorney ready to throw down. they kindly asked from the get go, that if i was willing to keep the entire situation out of court, they would comply as best as they could. they ended up repurchasing my vehicle and paying for modifications that were on the car (non-removable tint and clear bra). good luck!

Black Betty

iTrader: (60)

Thanks for the kind words and thoughts of solidarity. I'm not going to direct or encourage others to boycott Infiniti or Sewell, that's up to each person to decide for themselves. But I am telling you all what my poor experience with them has been like. Trust me, bad publicity in and of itself is immeasurably damaging. Lots of people who will never post in this thread or even register on this forum will see and read this thread and possibly have opinions influenced by it. Their typical customers won't, but those of us in the enthusiast community will. I don't mean to extort them into doing my repair for free. I want them to do it voluntarily because it's the right thing to do, and frankly in my view I have earned that goodwill. If they remain too shortsighted to see that, then this thread will stay here as a warning to others how much the company truly values their hard earned dollars spent. I can tell you from owning multiple businesses that $3K is nothing to keep a good business reputation.

I'm not inclined to spend a nickel to try to fight them. If I'm not persuasive enough on my own I'm not going to retain an attorney. My situation isn't as dire as yours seems to have been. In the end if they don't come through for me life will go on but you can best believe that I'm going to use the resources I have to let others know about it. That's enough for me.

J0KER

Hello all.....
Let me start by thanking all that have posted for the entertaining reading!
The fact that Infiniti and the consumer affairs division will not assist BB with there problem likely comes from a various list of reasons. I will start by quoting my mother. She used to say "you catch more flies with honey than vinegar." By reading your past posts I can imagine that you are likely not very respectful to the advisor or anyone at the dealership since in your head you are "smarter" and have more car knoledge than anyone there. It is due to this that I can take a strong guess that the consultant helping you didnt go to the matresses for you because you probably belittled him and made him feel like an ant. Customer service is based on a give and take and when it comes to asking for warranty when the vehicle is clearly not eligible than you need to be on your best behavior and not act like a teenager who has all of the answers.
Also let me help you with defining the term "brand loyal."
Wiki definition "Brand loyalty is more than simple repurchasing. Customers may repurchase a brand due to situational constraints (such as vendor lock-in), a lack of viable alternatives, or out of convenience.<SUP id=cite_ref-4 class=reference jQuery18305420326661683075="73">[4]</SUP> Such loyalty is referred to as "spurious loyalty". True brand loyalty exists when customers have a high relative attitude toward the brand which is then exhibited through repurchase behavior.<SUP id=cite_ref-****_1994_3-1 class=reference jQuery18305420326661683075="76">[3]</SUP> This type of loyalty can be a great asset to the firm: customers are willing to pay higher prices, they may cost less to serve, and can bring new customers to the firm.<SUP id=cite_ref-Reichheld_1990_5-0 class=reference jQuery18305420326661683075="79">[5]</SUP><SUP id=cite_ref-6 class=reference jQuery18305420326661683075="82">[6]</SUP> For example, if Joe has brand loyalty to Company A he will purchase Company A's products even if Company B's are cheaper and/or of a higher quality."
If you notice it says nothing about refering to the people who work for the brand as incompetent or calling them crooks.
Furthermore the statement that you have 90k worth of Infiniti products in your driveway is a bit of an exageration, with one that has low oil pressure and is out of warranty coupled with weak service history I would roll the dice and say that together your cars are worth roughly 30k.
Good luck with your situation and I look forward to reading your posts on the Lexus forums in the near future.

Black Betty

iTrader: (60)

So I got my call back from a supervisor today. She sounded an awful lot like the robotic person who handled my case before. She spit the exact same phrases at me literally word for word ("unfortunately Infiniti is not in a position to do anything further in your case") repeatedly. It's like they must get an electric shock or something if they go off the script. She wouldn't explain anything further about how the decision is reached other than they consulted with the retailer. Not a why or why not, just no. Her idea of extending goodwill was to offer to give me VPP pricing if I choose to buy another Infiniti in the near future. "We won't fix the defect with this car just beyond warranty, but drop another $50K with us and you'll have another car with a warranty again! Because we care."

Oh well. Off to Nissan I guess to get it fixed and have the timing parts changed while they're in there (thanks for the suggestion jmann). Hopefully this'll close this issue for good. Thanks everyone for the insightful replies and helpful advice. It didn't work for me in my case, but thanks anyway. Perhaps it might help the next guy, or someone who wants to see how much help Infiniti Consumer Affairs really can be. The moral of the story is, "No matter how well you service or maintain your car yourself, if you don't drop coin regularly at our dealership service department AFTER you've paid top dollar for your cars, you're SOL after warranty expires. We really couldn't care less about your sob story, bro. Have a nice day!"

JSolo

iTrader: (14)

Yup.. sounds about right. The service work payments keeps the dealer's hand greased in hopes of it some day rubbing off on you when you need it.

BB, you remember sometime last year we discussed oil changes and pulling off the splash tray entirely. This is the main reason I do it. If I do ever notice something , it goes right to the dealer to be documented/repaired. If there's a papertrail, them denying repairs shortly after warranty is less likely to happen.

Good luck!

Black Betty

iTrader: (60)

You better keep paying your extortion, err I mean service fees, if you want to be viewed favorably when the time comes for out of warranty repair consideration. Just having them document things that are wrong isn't going to help unless you've let them put their hands deep in your pockets throughout your history with the car. And apparently warranty work that they do at no cost to you doesn't count. Let them change your oil and fill your tires with nitrogen and give you a high quality car wash and sell you tires at retail + markup, and don't forget to pay for the 30K and 60K services. In fact, you might be in trouble for posting this because you discover issues while changing your own oil. That's a no no.

Bad Infiniti customer! Bad!

They should give me some extra consideration as a customer for not bringing it in for service more often. They'd have lost money on me just keeping me supplied with those tasty free donuts and fresh cookies in the waiting room.

Black Betty

iTrader: (60)

By the way, this thread is now the second search result on Google for "Infiniti consumer affairs experience". Lets hope it climbs higher. Just a token of my goodwill for their amazing customer service experience and support. Keep clicking and posting.

cruzmisl

If the only way they would give you the time of day on this issue is for you to do more preventative maintenance through them, it seems like you will still come out ahead.

My sister had an issue with her Lexus recently and she had to play the same games with regional consumer affairs. Basically a lot of run-arounds, "we'll call you back" and never do, and anything to keep kicking the ball further until she gave up.

JSolo

iTrader: (14)

Goodwill goes along way I already paid my dues with the extended warranty.

Seriously though, it's crap like this that brings a bad name to a company. Technically yes, you're out of warranty. You mention mileage, but not time. If you're a year out of warranty I'd tell you go to pound sand too. A few months, then yes, they should help, either partially or fully.

RISKY GUY

iTrader: (9)

Corporate usually takes it onto account.
If you have a good rapport with this dealership.
Contact corp direct & get a case # they do have something called,don't laugh.
"good faith" that were the exact words used when I had a 03 g35 sedan.
It had a bad Bose head unit, dash board cluster, heated seat switch & new front door speakers.
Car was out of coverage for 8k it had 68k on the odo & they did the right thing.
Think the dealer has a factor on how corp reacts.
Good customers are hard to find.
Also let corp know, all of there response will find its way to a very popular car site(unknown). They don't want to lose a long time customer over some gaskets.
I'd also mention, you don't want to take legal action.
( you could bluff corp & tell them the problem isn't brand new, just took longer than expected to find) any appreciation would be considered next time I purchase / lease my next vehicle.

Hope you get this sorted out, good luck with the repair.
Keep us posted.
If not covered, id yank her out of there IMO.

BLamb

iTrader: (1)

Sorry to hear of your troubles BB. I've found that cars even with good reliability records are always a gamble on out of warranty issues. My Honda was great, Toyota was terrible, so far the Infiniti hasn't had any issues but it's my first brand new car. I got burned pretty bad on the Toyota so I bought the extended warranty for 8 years on the Infiniti. Basically just pre-paid for a repair like yours, but it gives me piece of mind not worrying about having to shell out a bunch of cash unexpectedly on the car until 2020. I'm usually a DIYer but recently I've been bringing my car in with a costco pack of mobil1 synthetic and having them change the oil for $19.99. I usually try and get some warranty work/tsb updates or ask them to look at something while I'm there as well to make it worth the trouble. I can stand to pay them $40 a year to have a nice service history record. Hopefully they won't give me crap about changing my own air filters/brake jobs when it comes time.

Anyway it's stories like yours that lead me to "fearfully" purchase an extended warranty. It's a shame all auto companies are terrible about covering known major defects out of basic warranty. Hope you get it all fixed and taken care of.

Black Betty

iTrader: (60)

Yeah, I'm considering this done. They won, I lost. They seem fairly resolute not to give me any consideration and I can't make them. Like I said in the beginning, they're not legally obligated to. I'm still not going to throw money away on extended warranties or paying a dealership to do work for me that I can do for myself and that I enjoy doing for myself.

I did read something interesting about a somewhat similar situation. One person mentioned that complaining to Nissan North America was futile because there was no amount of complaining/whining/begging/reasoning was going to sway anyone once a decision was reached by Infiniti Consumer Affairs. However mentioning dissatisfaction directly to Nissan HQ in Japan might actually get a response because of the cultural difference in how treatment of customers is perceived. He gave contact info as well. Who knows? Going in with no expectations at this point, it might be an interesting experience to try it to see how they respond. Hmm...

Maybe I could be one of those losers on the local news standing out in front of the dealership raising hell with a sign harassing customers and passersby? That would work for sure. But I'd have to hide my dignity in the same place that Infiniti hides the customer satisfaction skills.

Chris11LE

What seems like forever ago, I traded my Accord coupe for my parents 2001 i30 (had kids, needed a sedan)

After having the car for a week or two I realized the blower motor was making a noise. By the time I got the car it was at least 1.5 years out of warranty. Just for the hell of it I drove to the dealer, just to get a quote. Needed to get to work so they gave me a loaner. Got a phone call later that it was fixed..."goodwilled".

It seems that the Infiniti of today isnt necessarily the same as back then. Not really sure ANY automakers are, but it would be nice if SOMEONE wasnt 110% concerned with the bottom line.

Social media seems to be the ticket lately. Rip em a new one on Twitter or Facebook (or dont even rip em, just explain whats happening) and someone somewhere gets woken up and told to contact you.

Sorry to see you lost, BB. Im not sure if any Nissan/Infiniti reps even read these forums, but if they did they would see that they should have helped you of all people from this board!

DPE G

iTrader: (19)

I didn't read through all three pages, just skimmed the first, however this is about the same deal I had with my ESCL on my wifes sedan, car is out of warranty by 5,000 miles, and even though Nissan has a recall on the same part, Infiniti turned a blind eye to it. The dealer did not want to help me because of the mileage. I escalated it to ICA and was initially denied because of the warranty period. They did however say they would review the situation and get back to me within 24-48 hours, when they did I once again got a quick and short "No". I escalated to a regional supervisor who was supposed to contact me in 3-5 business days which of course was late day 5 with the same short and simple "Can't help you" However once again she said she would review it. Again the next day I get the "No". When I asked why Nissan acknowledged the issue but Ininiti did not, the supervisor tried to explain to me that an Infiniti is not a Nissan....even though the exact piece in question has the Nissan hamburger logo stamped into it. Poor experience with them for sure.

Black Betty

iTrader: (60)

In times like this I kind of wish I wasn't a cantankerous old curmudgeon who hates social media. I don't have a Facebook or Twitter or Instagram account or anything like that. If any of you want to do it in principle, be my guest.