Okay so I buy a 2000 Max from a private seller with 92k miles on it. I take to my local Nissan dealer, Napoli Motors in Milford Ct. to get full maintenance on the car so I have a baseline of what the state of the car is as I go on with it.

One of the things I asked them to do is replace the rear side-marker lamps because they were both dead. I was called later in the day and was told by my service rep, Brandon, that the rear bumper had to come of to do it. Now I didn't have an owner's manual and I was under a bit of time pressure so I said go ahead to do it.

I ended up being charged around $93 in labor to replace those 2 lamps. Today I was reading a thread elsewhere on this site saying the lenses pop right off with a cloth covered screwdriver and that's all there is to it. I found the owner's manual on-line and it has an illustration showing the same thing.
I went there and complained and they gave me a story that they would rather take the bumper off than risk breaking a lens when popping it out. My side was that Nissan's own procedure described in the owner's manual and probably the service manual is to pop the lens with a cloth covered screwdriver.

They ended up giving me 2 new programmed ignition keys for $90 off. (their price of course) The key that came with the car looked like it went through a garbage disposal and I couldn't even put it on a key ring so I wanted new keys. A week later, my passenger side rear sidemarker was hanging down, lamp and all, from its wire after a trip back from NYC. What does that tell you?

Also Napoli Motors replaced a left rear brake caliper and 2 weeks later my brake warning light comes on the Connecticut Turnpike. Turns out it was brake fluid leaking from the brake line connection to the replaced caliper. When the light came on the Turnpike and before I knew there was a leak, I called Napoli service. The assistant service manager's advice was to "be careful" and he'll have it checked Monday. I stopped a couple of times to check the fluid level after that. It was the weekend and since Naopli was closed, I had to get it fixed elsewhere. I was not taking any chances with my brakes especially because I'm hauling my 9 y/o daughter in the car.

Also, after I picked up the car from having its service from Napoli, I take it to an authorized service place for the Connecticut emissions test completed.

It failed the test because the Check Engine does not come on when the key is turned to the "on" position before engine start. It turns out the lamp was dead. I go back to Naopli and asked them if that's something they check. Of course, they say no.

A few days later I get a piece of U.S. mail from Napoli that is a checklist of what was inspected and done to the car according to the maintenance procedure that was specified. The section labeled "in-car inspection" indicated that all lights were checked.

Now here's the thing. The Check Engine light was dead and when it was replaced by another shop, it lit up, which makes sense because why would it have been burned out in the first place?

It turns out that I needed some emissions work that Napoli could have performed if they had only truly inspected the in-car lights and found the dead Check Engine lamp, but since they didn't, I ended up having the work done at the shop that discovered the dead lamp. So Napoli didn't get any revenue from that service which they so easily could of. However they did reprogram my ECM for free which was a necessary part of the emissions work.

All of that back and forth between shops was totally unnecessary and took much wasted time on my part because of the lack of a 15 second check on Napoli's part which the tech said he did.

BTW, the checklist that I received in the mail also said the technician replaced the fuel filter which, according to the owner's manual is a "maintenance-free" part.