American Cars verses the Japonese and European cars for service...!
Jerry G.
Hi there...
I like what I hear about your experiance.
My sister bought a Maxima, and My father bought the
Pathfinder. I am now buying an Altima. I origionaly
wanted the Maxima, but I cannot go the extra bucks at
the moment. I didn't want to lease...
I had some GM products before, and I found the after sales
service to realy be bad... The last car I bought was a
Eurosport. It did the job, but was not a fun car to drive.
I had all kinds of problems with it, and each time I brought it
back, it was an argument. They always found something
that I had to pay for, and it was a big hassle to have it done.
I got so fed up, I took the car and had a private service centre
do the work. I therefore ended up paying the repairs.
I will give you an example about my 1986 Eurosport... The steering
was sticking,
and not working smoothly. They said they would repair it under
warrenty, but
I must pay for the seals, clamps, bolts, power-steering fluid, wheel
alignment,
and any labour time that involved non-warrentied parts that I just
mentioned...
The steering box assembly that they were going to replace was to be a
rebuilt... On a new car ??? Anyways, I went to my local
service centre, and
asked for an estimate to replace the steering box assy. for a
rebuilt on my
new car. Thinking I was a bit nuts to pay, his estimate came out to
about
$100.00 cheaper than doing it under warrenty from my dealer. Not
only that,
but the dealer wanted 1 week to do the job. My jobber said he needed
only
1 1/2 days to do it ! Naturaly I went to him. I had a few other
insidences like that.
I probably will never buy a GM car again !!! I am extreemly
dissapointed. It took me
3 cars to learn ! ( I guess I am a slow learner ! )
The Eurosport has been a pain in the ass ever since I bought it. I
had one
problem after another. The longest it ever went without a failure
was about
7 weeks. I have had to change the head-gasket (another similar
story as the above),
all the sensors ( about 5 times around at over $600.00 each time),
the main computer
module ( over $600.00 ), many ignition module covers ( 75.00 each )
, a few ignition
electronics ( over 350.00 ), and lots and lots of fan belts. I
think that everything was
changed twice except the engine block, transmission, and power
steering pump.
The only thing I was luck with was the air conditioning. It went for
about 7 years
trouble free. I am told it was a fluke ! I forgot to mention that
the valve cover gasket
leaks all the time, and it must be changed atleast 4 times a year !
And GM wonders why the Japonese cars are killing them. I heard a
lot of bad
stories about the Ford products as well. Chrysler is supposed to be
somewhere
in the middle...
A lady I work with has a Ford Torus. She is presently living a
night-mare with it.
She is trying to find a way to dump it, and buy a Japonese car or a
Volvo.
Everytime I talk to her, the car is in the garage for something !
And when she
had European or Japonese cars, she never had such problems...
The only reason why I didn't dump the car is that I would have had a
greater loss,
to sell this one, and pay for another...!
Sorry I write too much, but the end result is that I just ordered
myself the
Altima. The test drive realy turned me on. And, after enquiring on
the net and
all over, it was a tossup between a Toyota or Nissan product. I
found the
Nissan more to my personal preferance. My wife did like the Toyota
procuct.
Jerry Greenberg
Montreal, Canada jer...@total.net
----------
| From: Andre <nos...@netcom.ca>
| Newsgroups: alt.autos.nissan
| Subject: Maxima Clutch Shudder - solved (lengthy story)
| Date: Saturday, November 01, 1997 12:37:PM
|
| I promised I would report back to this newsgroup about my clutch
| shudder when I had it looked at...
|
| My car is a '96 Maxima SE, with 40,000 kilometers (25,000 miles).
|
| My clutch would shudder when engaging, but only if the car had not
| been driven for several hours, and the problem would clear itself
up
| after 20 minutes or so of driving.
|
| More recently, my car started making a faint rumbling noise from
the
| front end. This noise sounded almost like a wheel-bearing starting
to
| go, but it would stop when I pressed the clutch.
|
| I was due for an oil-change anyway, so it was time to mention these
| things to the dealer. Well, they did the oil change. They reported
| that while they could not duplicate the shuddering problem, they
| didn't like the noise. The service manager said he would talk to
| Nissan and see what they knew, and he sent me on my way.
|
| About 2 days later, the service manager called me to ask me to
bring
| the car back, since they'd like to check it out further. He told me
| he'd probably want to keep the car for a couple of days, so I
rented a
| car.
|
| I brought it in last Monday, and didn't get it back until Thursday.
|
| Turned out that the rumbling noise was the viscous limited-slip
| differential - it had somehow lost its fluid. The dealer said this
was
| a "freak occurence".
|
| Anyway, they replaced it. The service manager said they never did
| duplicate my clutch-shudder, but they took my word for it and
replaced
| the clutch. They also gave the transmission an overhaul while they
| were at it. They also replaced my hand-brake cables. They covered
the
| whole job under warranty.
|
| I got the car back, and it was PERFECT! The clutch is as smooth as
a
| baby's bottom, the trans feels a little tighter, and the rumbling
| noise is gone.
|
| Needless to say, I was very impressed with the service - I liked
their
| no-nonsense approach, and the fact that they went out of their way
to
| make sure I was happy. They even paid for 25% of my car rental.
|
| I've never experienced this kind of service at other dealerships -
| even other Nissan dealers.
|
| For the record, the dealership is Graham Nissan in Nepean (Ottawa),
| Ontario (Canada.).
|
| Andre
|
|
| -------------------------------------------------------------------
| (Change 'nospam' to 'agh' in my address if you would like to reply)
| -------------------------------------------------------------------
|
--
You must remove the NOSPAM from my internal
address to reply to me. Sorry about that...
Reply To: jer...@total.net
W-Site http://www.total.net/~jerryg
----------------------------------------------------------------------
-
S&A Rabinowitz
I bought a 1986 Buick Somerset regal new in March of 86. I had the car for
22 months, it was one of the worst experiences of my life. The car was a
lemon and the dealer was an asshole who lost his dealership a few years
after that. I will NEVER buy another GM product again. I traded it in for a
new Ford (at a big loss) which was much better, although not as trouble
free as my new Altima.
My .02 worth .
FornMade
it took you this long to figure out that the japanese products seem to have
more reliability than its US counterparts?
Forn...@aol.com