Nissan qashqai Problems

[RJF_70]

My Son's qashqai 1.5DCi stripped the teeth on its cambelt a while ago! After a long stand off with the Finance company (dealer who provided car now closed down) he decided to have the work done at Sutton Park Tamworth and as the engine is a Renault engine they gave him a quote which he was happy with and we towed it over there on Tuesday this week! Wednesday we received a call stating the cambelt was still on vehicle but had lost most of its teeth and to contact Nissan as the fault that had caused this was in fact a recall or campaign, and they had diagnosed the problem to be mis aligned high pressure pump. They used the chassis number to establish that the car should of been recalled and problem fixed in 2016 (my son purchased in August 2017). After work yesterday I spent an hour on the phone to Nissan customer services, who said that because I had taken it to Renault and had it diagnosed and the fact there was a recall on vehicle, they would allocate a claims manager who would converse with Renault to have the car transferred to a Nissan garage so they could investigate further, Usually he said a claims manager wasn't allocated unless the diagnosis had been carried out by Nissan, but on this occasion they would be happy to listen to Renaults comments on damage etc.
Great we thought, car has only covered 61k by the way. Today I had a call from claims manager saying they could do nothing as they weren't prepared to converse with Renault, and that the chassis numbers with the mis alignment problem wasn't my sons. They also stated that because the car missed it's 2014 Nissan service there was nothing they could do or would do to help out. I reffered them to the amazing amount of online info regarding the cam belt problems with the engines, and filled them in on what had been said the previous day to which they showed no interest, until I asked if I could obtain a copy of the conversation from the previous day, as I had given them permission to record it!
Then there was all sorts of back peddling and trying to dodge giving me the facts about service records and dates of recalls etc, but they still stood firm that they weren't prepared to show any good will as although the car had been well serviced by Nissan and 1 other garage in 2014 the Warranty period had expired and the car was bought from an Independant garage.
I don't know much about the law side of things but surely if this car had an outstanding recall stating a mechanical defect it should of been picked up by Nissan when it was dealer serviced in both 2015 and 2016, but they would not give me the date of this recall and changed their stance again stating it was only a Nissan campaign (trying to bamboozle me with gumph).
Is it worth persuing this or should my son just bite the bullet and get the repairs done by Renault, they obviously wont know the damage until stripping top of engine now!
Any advice gratefully received
Rich..

[LJColeman]

Rich,

I’m a Service manager for a Renault dealer (previous master tech) and I remember this recall very well. We were replacing engines left right & centre back in the day.

I’m not sure how I can help you but from my experience in a main dealer, I would continue to battle
With customer services until you get some form of goodwill.

[matt of the vivas]

What year is the car and what mileage?

[Carledo]

Time to bring out the big guns and threaten them with trading standards and Watchdog. And follow it up if they still refuse to help!

I had a similar problem with Nissan a few years ago, when the Navarra's diesel motor was routinely spinning the no 3 conrod bearings at 80k miles when the big end bolts inexplicably came loose. There was a recall on them, but the problem was alleged by Nissan to be a production malfunction which was fixed in 2002. The vehicle in question was a 2007 model, so they said it was tough, the owner would just have to swallow the cost. But we found LOADS of other disguntled owners of later than 2002 vehicles with the same problem, so the "fix" obviously didn't work. About this time, I dropped out of the process, having repaired the truck and got paid (close to £2k) but I gather that the owner continued to pursue Nissan and eventually got a goodwill payout that did not clear his costs, but went a good way towards it!

My own theory was that there was a stray harmonic in the engine that caused the bolts to loosen (it was ALWAYS and ONLY the no 3 rod that suffered) when I rebuilt the motor, I applied a slight over-torque and lots of Loctite. It's been OK so far, but I don't think it's done another 80k yet!

Steve

[RJF_70]

What year is the car and what mileage?

The car is a 61 plate and current mileage is almost 61k. The Nissan case manager quoted the cambelt change as 6 years or 90k.

[matt of the vivas]

From the point of view of someone who has done lots of cambelts on these engines, if there was a misalignment issue i cant see it having lasted 7 years or 61k. Without seeing the damage first hand i cant tell, but it could just be one of those things. Belts age and perish, thats why theres always a time interval as well as mileage. If a 61 plate car took a few months to sell theres quite a strong possibility that belt is now 8 years old. The other thing Nissan may rightly point out is that if the belt had been done on time at 6 years old any misalignment issue would have been picked up then before engine damage occured. Sorry, i feel for you, but i dont think you are going to get anywhere with it. Matt.

[RJF_70]

From the point of view of someone who has done lots of cambelts on these engines, if there was a misalignment issue i cant see it having lasted 7 years or 61k. Without seeing the damage first hand i cant tell, but it could just be one of those things. Belts age and perish, thats why theres always a time interval as well as mileage. If a 61 plate car took a few months to sell theres quite a strong possibility that belt is now 8 years old. The other thing Nissan may rightly point out is that if the belt had been done on time at 6 years old any misalignment issue would have been picked up then before engine damage occured. Sorry, i feel for you, but i dont think you are going to get anywhere with it. Matt.

Matt, that's what I'm trying to establish, the (Nissan) recall was in 2015 or 2016 apparently. The car was serviced by Nissan in both 2015 and 2016 so I wanted to establish if there was an overlap on dates therefore if there was then it should have been picked up by Nissan. It is tough luck on my son and it's likely that he will have to cough up and pay for the repair, But can't help thinking the claims manager realised my point and refused to give me any exact dates etc.
Rich..

[swifty]

I've heard nothing but bad news about Qashqais from three people I work with who own them. My boss had owned hers less than two years and had had to return it to Nissan 7 times in that period and they seemingly had no idea what was wrong with it. On the 7th time it was of course out of warranty by less than a week and they predictably gave zero fucks despite it only being three weeks since they had supposedly repaired it. She gave up and got rid. We have even been given a new one as a fleet work car and it has an intermittent warning light that keeps coming on. I appreciate this bad news story helps you not one iota with your unfortunate problem - but after her appalling experience with Nissan and their after sales service my boss decided to hurt them in the one way that the little guy can truly hurt big corporate who are purveyors of shite products - bad reviews and spreading the word - so far we can account for two people who definitely would have bought them but now haven't ...

[RJF_70]

I've heard nothing but bad news about Qashqais from three people I work with who own them. My boss had owned hers less than two years and had had to return it to Nissan 7 times in that period and they seemingly had no idea what was wrong with it. On the 7th time it was of course out of warranty by less than a week and they predictably gave zero fucks despite it only being three weeks since they had supposedly repaired it. She gave up and got rid. We have even been given a new one as a fleet work car and it has an intermittent warning light that keeps coming on. I appreciate this bad news story helps you not one iota with your unfortunate problem - but after her appalling experience with Nissan and their after sales service my boss decided to hurt them in the one way that the little guy can truly hurt big corporate who are purveyors of shite products - bad reviews and spreading the word - so far we can account for two people who definitely would have bought them but now haven't ...

He just bit the bullet in the end with no help from Nissan..just back and forth with them. The cost was £2100 Luckily the head / valves needed some work but pistons etc were fine!! We were expecting to have to cough for a new engine after reading pages and pages of bad stuff on forums etc, but considering it has been repaired by a main dealer (not Nissan) I think price was probably fair.

[Nick C]

I've heard nothing but bad news about Qashqais from three people I work with who own them. My boss had owned hers less than two years and had had to return it to Nissan 7 times in that period and they seemingly had no idea what was wrong with it. On the 7th time it was of course out of warranty by less than a week and they predictably gave zero fucks despite it only being three weeks since they had supposedly repaired it. She gave up and got rid. We have even been given a new one as a fleet work car and it has an intermittent warning light that keeps coming on. I appreciate this bad news story helps you not one iota with your unfortunate problem - but after her appalling experience with Nissan and their after sales service my boss decided to hurt them in the one way that the little guy can truly hurt big corporate who are purveyors of shite products - bad reviews and spreading the word - so far we can account for two people who definitely would have bought them but now haven't ...

One of my colleagues has a Qashqai, and she's had no end of problems with it too, it's gone through several injectors, along with various other problems...