Well fellas, by now you all know that somebody smashed my Max. The outside of the car/body is fixed but the suspension remains the hold up.

The reason for the hold up is due to no availability of Inner Tie Rods due to all of them currently being used to build the new Maximas at the factory.

Outer Tie Rods can be found anywhere but inners by themselves are not available unless you purchase an entire Steering Assy which comes with the Inner Tie Rod but that item itself costs $554.00.

The Inner Tie Rods are on backorder and according to Nissan they will not be available for delivery until mid Jan.

I probably won't have my car until after the middle of Jan.

 

I am a HUGE Nissan fan, BUT:

With the way Maximas (and all cars on planet earth) are NOT pouring off dealer lots at this time, and with many auto assembly line shifts either slowed or stopped, I find it totally unreasonable that Nissan could not have virtually any part for their '09 Maxima flagship available within two weeks.

Put another way, it is simply standard business practice to have any part for any product your company makes available within a reasonable time. For new automobiles, especially those assembled in the U.S. using U.S. parts, it should not take more than two weeks to obtain any part.

 

Yeah, you would think that they'd have all of the parts stocked for their customers given that a situation like an accident can and will occur.

I found it very strange that they didn't have an item as simple as a Tie Rod in stock but somehow had the more expensive Steering Assy in stock.

Makes me wonder.

 

Did you complain to the Nissan hot line number. The number is in your manual. They helped me out when I was told the same thing on a part for my '04 Max. GL

 

Damn that sounds like a lot of BS to me. They're just trying to get $ from you, knowing that you need that part and thinking that right away you'll buy the whole assy. Call and complain big time about this

 

+1, call them up dude. Its not like they are going to sell any of those Maximas they are building anyways. If you want to be sneaky though, go to your local Nissan shop and yank em off a new max.... or don't.

 

No, I started to call Nissan Consumer Affairs though just to see what kind of response they would give me but I think I'll try both.

 

My drivers side seat heater stopped working and after 2 trips to the dealer they decided it was a relay. It seems there are no relay's in stock for the 09 Max so it is back ordered. This will be week 3 that I am waiting for the part to arrive.

3 weeks for a relay? I hope nothing more intricate breaks!

BTW, I suggested they just grab one of the relay's off a car on the lot. Straight answer, forget it....

 

Damn Bro, I feel for you, I guess we're in the same boat and it's sinking-FAST.

I had everybody and their momma check on this part for me and it is true that there are NONE in stock, they're all on BackOrder and the only parts available are in Japan (which makes one wonder then what is the point of having a Nissan Maxima manufactured in the USA then).

Seeing that most dealerships (Nissan included) aren't selling too many cars these days one would think that any dealership would or should be more than happy to cannibalize parts from cars on their lots to keep their current owners on the road and satisfied and just order the parts and place the ones they removed from the cars on the lot.

I guess that this would be asking too much though, huh?

 

I tried to order a windshield direct from Nissan and I ended up getting the "call back in a few days" thing because the part wasn't listed yet. It's a BRAND new car...I bet it will take 2-3 weeks for anything to be ready as much as that stinks for us.

 

This may be a direct aftereffect of the crisis in the US auto industry. With 'just in time' parts delivery being employed by Nissan and other domestic car factories, I wonder if the suppliers are slowing down their production in direct proportion to the factory? Remember that Nissan has STOPPED production in some cases, to keep new car inventories from getting too large. With the cost of raw materials and production lines increasing, many suppliers are surely overleverged and may be getting heaviliy squeezed.

The bottom line is that during a recession, parts for newly designed products like the Maxima may take even longer to get into inventory.

 

but would you by a new car that has been cannibalized to keep an existing customer happy? I wouldn't. I would head to another dealership to by the car complete.

 

A windshield is not only something that is regularly broken by junk thrown up by the millions of semis clogging our roads; it is a SAFETY ITEM, and Nissan should NEVER fail to have official Nissan Carlex windshields available.

Although the first 'sale date' was June 26, production on the '09 Maxima began back in February, and I saw them rolling off the assembly line in Smyrna last March. That was almost a YEAR ago. No windshield available? Not even 'listed?' Either some dealer does not know how to order parts, or Nissan has dropped the ball BIG TIME on this. Absolutely inexcusable.

 

Yes, sure I would (why not?) as long as the parts came off of a brand new car that had never been driven (other than to the lot or while moving it during manufacturing).

I see nothing wrong with doing it this way, I wasn't speaking of the part coming off some used car or broken down car.

 

get them from a junkyard? i guarantee there are those parts in yards somewhere in the US. people crash 'new' cars all the time.

 

I'm not sure you'd know that a part was used from a car in stock and then replaced sometime later. I don't think that a dealer would be obliged to tell potential customers that parts had been "borrowed" from other cars in their inventory.

That said, I agree. I'd be pissed if I found out my new car was disassembled and reassembled by the dealer before I bought it....

 

i worked at stealerships. we would NEVER tell a customer we did that. and we probably wouldn't anyways. we made money off the car that is sold, no reason to potentially lose a sale on a car we havn't sold yet. doesn't make sense from the money grabbing logic stealerships use...

 

As a follow up on this item, it is now almost 2 months and my dealer has not been able to get the relay to fix my seat heater problem. It seems this part is just not available to order from Nissan, anywhere.

My dealer is going to remove one from a car in his inventory and put it on my car, as I had originally suggested. Pretty cool of them to do this and they must be desperate for parts if it has come to this.

Sure hope nothing else breaks.

 

I'm happy for you that they're willing to cannibalize one of their new vehicles to take care of a customer, IMO that is what Customer Care is all about.

Some here on this forum look down upon/frown upon using parts from another car to take care of their cars but as long as the part is new (as in this case) or coming straight from one of the cars (Brand new, that is) then I see no problem in taking care of a customer and seeing them happy and enjoying their ride.

It took to the middle part of Jan to get my car/the part needed but it rides like when I first got it and it looks as though it was never hit, most ppl that see my car can't believe that it was ever hit in the first place.

Enjoy your ride.

 

i just waited over 2 months for the lumbar support module to come in. like someone previously said, i hope nothing else breaks.

 

I am not in favor of cannibalizing a new car on the dealer's lot for a replacement part.

BUT

If Nissan is unable to come up with a part needed for a customer's vehicle within two weeks, then that part should be taken from a new vehicle, and the dealer should be compensated by Nissan for having a vehicle he can't demo, much less sell, sitting on his lot.

I am somewhat mystified as to how Nissan can continue running a production line when so many parts are on back order. It makes no sense for parts to be available for assembling cars that may not be sold for many months, but not available for a car bought in good faith; a car not fully functional because a part we know exists is on 'back order' for months.

I am a huge Nissan fan, but this 'back order' schtick is very poor customer relations. I mean, this is not a Yugo we are talking about; this is Nissan's newly redesigned flagship.

 

You would think that production would or at the very least should slow down to a bare minimum seeing that car sales are relatively low across the spectrum but it seems Nissan are cranking out more Maximas than they can keep parts available for.

I'm starting to see more Maximas in my community, when I bought mine I only saw about 2 other Maximas.

The Nissan Customer Relations department is one of the best that I've ever dealt with and I'm certain if enough complaints come through their office that these parts issues would soon be resolved.

How many of you with parts issues have tried calling them??