Six weeks ago I purchased a brand new 2002 Nissan Maxima from Team Nissan in Manchester, NH and have been living a nightmare ever since.


Long story short, the car was infested with ants, they finally agreed to fix it. The gutted the car, found a thriving ant colony in the headliner, and removed it. After a shoddy job of putting the car back together, they fumigated.

I arrived on the 19th, sat in the car, and started to notice all of the additional problems they had caused when they "gutted the car" and put it back together. First of all, everything on the dashboard was foggy and faded, a result of the fumigation. The lights behind the dashboard were considerably dimmer than they were two weeks prior. The moon roof controls were sporadic at best, working maybe once every 3 times I pressed them. The controls on the front windows were sporadic as well, and the window rattled when it moved up and down. To top it all off, as I drove the car home, I noticed that the dome light was hanging from a wire.


I've told them I wanted to be traded into a new car that has not been gutted, fumigated, and is not infested with ants. They refuse to budge on this, and I am not very happy.

In a nutshell, I would avoid this dealership like the plague!

 

lawyer time.

 

that's a bad deal. Write a letter to your local newspaper and diss them.

 

Methinks Nissan USA may help you out?

 

lemon law?

 

First and foremost, document your story and proposed resolution in a succinct, well written (business) letter (mailed return receipt) to the dealership General Manager or President, and ask to receive a written response within a couple of weeks. If no joy, then escalate to the Nissan Regional Zone Manager, first call, then offer to provide copy of correspondences. It is important to maintain a professional, pragmatic but firm demeanor. It may be appropriate to indicate that you would rather avoid litigation, but will persue if you and dealer/Nissan cannot arrive at a mutually acceptable resolution soon.

Good luck.

 

Get a lawyer...these are the right things to do, but if you do it, nothing will get done. If these letters and phonecalls come from a lawyer, things will move a LOT faster. There was a guy that bought a used 2001 BMW (can't remember which state...have a lot of cases going through my head)...well, it turned out that the car was repainted, but was not noted on the VIN#, or its history. Well, the guy sued BMW for somewhere around $5,000,000.00 and won. Get a lawyer ASAP, and it will get done quickly.

 

Thanks for the suggestions, they are all being considered. I am following up with the State Arbitration Board. If this fails, I will pull in my lawyer. In the meantime, I have sent a detailed account of my story to a few of the local news teams. 3 of the local stations have already replied and seem to be pretty excited to see my ant video footage. I'll keep you posted....