I have a 2011 Maxima with about 82k miles on it. This is the 4th of 4 new Maxima's I've purchased over the last 20 years or so.

On Friday Apr 26 leaving work I noticed it started missing and I ended up taking it to the dealer where I purchased it the following day (Classic Nissan/Streetsboro, OH). After about 3 hrs of waiting in the svc lounge the svc guy came out and was going to give me a loaner as they weren't able to diagnose it. I brought up the subject of my extended svc contract and presented my card. He said THEY couldn't fix it under the warranty. Seems that Classic (original dealership) just got bought by Collection Auto Group and Classic is not allowing the new Collection dealership to work on their Nissan extended warranty service. He said Collection could continue to work on it and I'd have to pay out of pocket OR I would need to take it across the street to the Classic Honda dealer for them to address.

So, I drove it over to Classic Honda and made apt for that following Monday. I had to get a rental for three days until one of their loaners became available. Of course, a day later they called saying they didn't have Nissan Consult tools and told me they'd have to sub it out. Collection Auto Nissan across the road didn't want it back, so they shipped it to Fred Martin Nissan in Akron, OH who has had it since.

Thursday May 5th update was that they were working with Nissan sharing consult/test data and were told to replace back three coils, but needed ordered in as not in stock.

Today's update (Thur May 8) just got coils in but no change in the problem and moving on to more diagnostics.

So, I've been without my Maxima since 4/26 and still no end in sight. At least the Honda dealer has me in a brand new Crosstour for free loaner until fixed.

I'm curious what others would be doing in this situation? Am I being too patient? I'm being told that the issue is out of the norm and standard diagnostic flow isn't detecting root cause.

 

At least you have a loaner so they have some incentive to fix it soon. I would be patient, you probably do not have many other options.

 

If it's a Nissan extended warranty any Nissan dealer should honor it

 

It's under First Extended Service Corp with Classis Nissan listed as selling dealer.
On the back of the card it reads:

"If your vehicle is within 40 mile of the selling dealer, you must deliver your vehicle to the selling dealer at the address shown on the cover of your extended service Agreement.

If your vehicle is more than 40 mile from the selling dealer, call First Extended Service Corp for instructions before you deliver your vehicle to a repairing facility. To assure coverage under the terms of the agreement, authorization on behalf of the selling dealer must be obtained prior to teardown or repair."

Apparently Classic has some authority on where the car can be repaired. Could just be bad blood between the two dealerships now that they are under diff ownership and/or Classic (Honda) wants to keep as much repair work in house as they can handle. Remember that once they couldn't diagnose the offered Collection Nissan the job (which they turned down).

 

That's the rub... this is not a Nissan backed warranty.

 

Man that sucks. I've owned 4 Nissans, 3 of them Maxima's and a 2010 Murano. If they treated me like that I would take the car in and trade it for something else other than Nissan. When I bought my Maxima in Kansas I also bought an extended warranty for the CVT and a host of other components. I now live in California and the only thing they don't honor here is the free oil changes for life, they do however give me every fourth change free. Good luck.

 

Status update....
Got a call Sat from Honda dealer. Said that they have swapped in new stuff ranging from mass airflow sensor to new spark plugs etc. all to no avail. Unfortunately, all the new components being tried out were swapped back to the originals once they concluded it wasn't root cause.

Next up are new fuel injectors. They were getting approval from xtended warranty company and should have those in Tuesday (tomorrow) to try out.

It's been so long I'm starting to forget what its like to drive it.

 

Finally have my car back! Got a call Saturday that the 3 new injectors did the trick. Picked it up and WOW....like a brand new car. Forgot what HP it really has. Those injectors must have been going downhill for some time.

Why it took them since 4/26 to get to the injectors is beyond me, especially with the dealer working with factory support. I guess you just start swapping stuff out until one fixes it.

Not sure why they failed. I've driven my prior 3 Maximas to 120K-130K miles before trading in and never had an ounce of problems with injectors.

Anyway, back to being a happy camper again.

 

I'm super happy with this story. I'm sure many Max owners would dread not having their car for almost a month in the hands of a dealership they aren't even near who are simply "experimenting" with trying to fix the problem.

This does, however, make me eager to find out about my own extended warranty as the dealership I purchased from just recently changed their name. I'm not sure if they were bought out or if they just decided to change the name of the business.

Regardless, I think it's important to know what your extended warranty can and can't do for you and what dealerships can or can't do as well. I'm glad you got your Max back! I'm sure that Crosstour was becoming a crossBORE.

 

Thanks for the comments. One funny thing I failed to mention was that last Thursday while going out for lunch I fired up the Crosstour loaner and the freakin service engine light came on. Now I'm starting to think I have a curse hanging over me. I called Honda and they swapped me into another later that afternoon. Ended up having a good laugh over it.

Last comment on the warranty work...you recall that the Nissan dealer (who got bought and where I took this originally) told me that Classic won't let them do their warranty work. The service guy at Classic Honda said that's not the case and they don't want the warranty work there due to reduced hourly rate of around $75 vs. normal shop labor charge of $130.00. I'm starting to believe Honda's story more than the other.

Good idea if you check terms of your xtended warranty so you don't waste time like I did.

 

 

Thanks for sharing your story feotto.... Helps all of us to be better prepared if we experience similar problems. Glad it finally worked out for you.