In June my 2004 Nissan Altima 2.5S had a catastrophic engine failure while I was on vacation. The car was right at 100,000 miles. The dealer's service tech told me that my pre-cat had failed, a power valve s***w had backed out, and a crank position sensor failed. One of the 4 cylinders was operating at 50 psi less than the others when a compression test was done. The dealer said the engine was bad and needed replaced since they did not find it feasible to bore the cylinder and re-sleeve it.
I was originally told by the Nissan dealer's service supervisor that Nissan would likely cover the repairs since the failures where associated with recalls that Nissan had issued. After days of waiting the dealer's service supervisor got back to me and told me that Nissan would not cover the repairs. They then told me to contact Nissan USA to see if they would be of assistance. I was told by a Nissan USA customer support rep that Nissan would cover the repairs, but I had to have the engine repair work done first and submit a receipt for approval by a regional rep.
The dealer charged about $5,000 for a new 2.5L long block. After paying extended hotel fees, car rental charges, and towing bills my total expenses came closer to $5,500-6,000.
When I asked why I had never received recall notices about the problems that caused my engine to fail the Nissan USA rep said that the vehicle had never been registered to me with Nissan's service division. This is despite my having bought the vehicle used (and an extended warranty through 93,000 miles) from a Nissan dealer.
Upon my return home I submitted my receipts to Nissan just as I was instructed. That was mid-June. Over the course of the next two months I made many phone calls to Nissan and my file was transferred to at least 5 different people that I know of. Finally Nissan called me back last week to tell me that they aren't going to do anything.
Nissan refuses to hone up to their engineering defects and faulty dealer relations. Instead they suggested that I try to get the dealer that sold me the car to pay for the repairs. How sad- passing the buck like that.
I find it truly pathetic that Nissan had no problems registering the VIN to me, but they could not link ownership and service records together?
One of the customer service reps even noted to my wife on the phone that my extended warranty had recently run out. They were able to track that but not forward important recall notices to me?
I would also like to note that once I was finally shown the "voluntary" recall for the power valve it said something to the order of, "may come loose and cause a loss of power". My car did not suffer a "loss of power". The engine just died. It's a good thing I was driving through a parking lot and not on a 4 lane highway at 80mph. Talk about dangerous, imagine the possibilities since there were no power brakes or power steering when the engine died.
Since I have looked into this more I have found that there are other failures associated with this engine. Apparently they can also burn excessive amounts of oil, do not want to start in cold weather, will have the precat fail and dump particles into the cylinder scorching the cylinder walls, have the power valve screws back out scorching the cylinder walls and damaging spark plugs, and have random crank sensor failures.
I am curious how many other Nissan owners have had similar problems to mine? Did you receive any help from your dealer or Nissan USA? Can anyone provide some numbers as to the number of failures associated with these problems?
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