I can really use some advice on an ongoing situation I have found myself in.
Background:
I got a great deal on my Nissan Ariya lease paying $360 a month (including tax) with $1,900 due upfront for fees and first month. Not much else in my area today at that price and would prefer not to let it go. The vehicle was sold to me with 3,390 miles, but dealer rolled back the paperwork to show 499 miles so that they could push it through NMAC as a new car. As a result, my 10/36 was bumped up to 12/36 to accommodate the lower starting mileage giving me an extra 3,100 miles by lease end.
Issues:
The car was locking itself with all settings turned off. It would even lock itself with the key present in the vehicle. Upon further inspection an aftermarket alarm/lock was installed by the dealer without my knowledge. Long ago, Nissan issued a bulletin to all dealerships to not install any aftermarket electronic devices in the Nissan Ariya due to issues it can cause. This dealer clearly violated the Nissanās directive and was responsible for the issue. They admitted to installing the device in all of the their vehicles and the GSM told me his own car has the same issue and āthat kinda makes sense why it acts funny.ā
The car was sold with an active safety recall: Steering Wheel Bolt. I was not advised of any recall on the car and it sat on the dealers lot for 65 days before I got my hands on it. The recall was issued in February 2022. I only found about it when I had the key locked in the car due to issue #1 about 3 weeks after purchase, downloaded the app to unlock the car. Nissan never notified me of the recall either by the time I took it the dealer 5 weeks after lease start.
Repair:
The issue was discovered by a different dealer than the one who sold the vehicle (120 miles away). They would not touch this at all, so I got Nissan Consumer Affairs involved and they were able to work with the local dealer to get the unit removed using āNissan Financial Assistance,ā or so I thought. When I inquired further about warranty coverage, Nissan Consumer Affairs stated that the warranty on the car will be honored for an electronic related issues that may arise during my ownership and that the alarm was not removed, but merely disconnected.
They now want me to drive to the original dealer who sold the vehicle to remove the alarm system from the vehicle. On one hand they are telling me that I do not need to remove the device since it is not connected, there is no need to remove it. On the other, they say it has to be removed to so that my local dealer can seal to the spliced wires to prevent any potential condensation damage that could occur into the future. However, neither of these fixes will restore the Manufactureās Warranty and if an issue arises Nissan may provide financial assistance just as they have in this scenarios. Mind you, that this process has gone on for over 11 weeks at this point and is not something I want to deal with again.
Concerns:
One of the big draws of getting a new car is the warranty and peace of mind that comes with it. I feel like Nissan not honoring the warranty due to no fault of my own is plain wrong and a monetary loss on my part. The price of the car is inclusive of the warranty and if Nissan will not honor the warranty then the vehicle should be discounted. They will not VIN swap.
They sold me a car with an active recall. Since the car is technically not new, it does not violate Federal rules, however does violate state rules/precedent.
They cannot submit monetary reimbursement for the 3 weeks I did not have the car until the repairs (remove device and shrink wrap the cut wires) are made (approximately $270 for car lease payment + $90 for insurance, $800 x 3/26)
I have asked that they remedy the vehicle to OEM spec by replacing the wiring harness so that the Warranty can be honored. Their response is that the shrink wrapping of the wire is a sufficient repair to remedy any issues and therefore will not replace the wiring harness.
Questions:
Does Nissan or the Dealer have any responsibility to self report sale of vehicles with active safety recall?
How to monetize the value of the warranty they are not honoring?
Is my issue with Nissan or with the Dealer?
What recourse do I have?
What would you do?
Anything else I should be asking?
Appreciate your time reading this and any input you may have. Curious what you would do if you were in this situation or if anyone else has gone through this or something similar beforeā¦
You need to contact a public agency such as a Dept of Consumer Affairs to see what your rights are with regard to both Nissan Motors (the OEM) and the dealership that sold the car.
That will depend on corporate policy and your stateās law. You need to check your stateās specific laws.
Find out how much a similar warranty will cost from a third party.
3-6) More the dealer. The issue was caused by them, not Nissan, and if you want a remedy, then they should provide a comparable warranty and revert the car back to factory specs.
Just a note, Nissan canāt void an entire warranty. They can say āwe will not warranty the alarm system and related electronicsā. They still have to warranty unrelated items like the engine and transmission. It is called the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act.
And another note, a third-party warranty will generally not warranty aftermarket items. The dealer needs to revert the wiring back to factory specs.
Agree with the actual advise, it would be legitimate for Nissan to not claim liability for these issues under warranty given that they were modified by a third party, but at this point the liability should be on your selling dealer since they preformed the modifications. As for getting out of the lease if the dealer doesnāt give a real resolutionā¦ Iād imagine that the fact that the mileage was nonsense could probably provide a path to that, but that would be very serious.
The most important thing right now is identifying the best available counsel and making sure that every topic you have covered in your summary is perfectly documented in as close to triplicate as possible. Save every shred of paper and email, etc. Did you possibly even take a photo at delivery that happens to include the odo?
Also, count your lucky stars that you reside (and transacted?) in the Peopleās Republic of Califor-ni-a.
May I ask: is this a corporate store of a mom and pop job?
Also, count your lucky stars that you reside (and transacted?) in the Peopleās Republic of Califor-ni-a.
Yes, sale was in Southern California.
Did you possibly even take a photo at delivery that happens to include the odo?
No, but I have proof that the mileage submitted to the DMV differed from the lease paperwork. This is because the my insurance which renewed at the end of September tried to gouge me for 16,000 miles a year driven even though I only put 400 miles on it over the course of 5 weeks. That was a separate headache I had to deal with!
May I ask: is this a corporate store of a mom and pop job?
Not sure what you mean here? The transaction occurred at a Nissan dealership
Need to look into this further. Thanks for the insight.
What I fear is that Nissan Warranty could claim that an issue related to the electrical system, be it the battery or motor component since they are both electrical, could have been caused by the aftermarket electronic device. Nissan will not give any assurance that the Warranty will be honored āhowever they have thoroughly documented the issue and may provide financial assistance if an issue would arise.ā
May and if donāt help here and they will not put anything in writing.
This dealer only has 2 shops with the same name. Raceway Ford and Raceway Nissan.
I would say itās a mom and pop. Although the GSM I worked with said they pulled him up from Temecula that day so I am not sure how I would confirm that detail.
My thought is you want out of this car ASAP. The longer you wait the higher chance you get stuck having to pay for repairs with Nissan refusing to honor warranty. To that end:
Was this a new car sale or a used car sale by the paperwork submitted to the state of CA? If itās a new car sale the dealerships in close proximity to you have to fix the issue or the car can be lemoned. The alarm is a dealer approved add on not some third party addition. Iām not a California lemon law expert but Iād wager a lot of money Nissan is responsible for anything added by its own franchised dealer before a new car sale.
Unrelated, you can call whoever financed the lease and inform them of the fraud. I suspect they will want to unwind the lease due to the dealerships fraudulent actions.
Challenge here is Nissan told all dealers in a bulletin to not install any electronics into the Ariya, hard stop. Dealer admitted to Nissan that they install the alarm on all their cars, EV and ICE.
The DMV form REG262 does not indicate New or Used, however the lease paperwork submitted to NMAC indicates new.
IANAL, but what do you mean by āchallenge?ā If the dealer acknowledged in writing somewhere that they installed the alarm, then you have documentation.
It sounds like you also have documentation of the odo rollback.
I agree w/ the others advising you to get out of this lease.
If manufacturers could fight lemon law claims by claiming the issue was their franchisees fault there would be very few successful lemon law claims. It would be prohibitively expensive to prove the dealer/service department wasnāt at fault. However, thatās just not how it works.
If this is a new car and Nissan refuses to fix the problem by blaming it on their dealer, their tune will change when you start lemon law proceedings.
