A possessed car!

That's what the service tech at the dealership called it when I told him my Cube had started all by itself! I had already brought it in for two safety recalls and the service light had come on twice since buying it new only three months before. The keyless ignition, the big selling point of the car, was now becoming a bit of a buggaboo. Several times it had not wanted to start when I pressed the button. First I thought I was doing something wrong, but as it became more frequent, I finally brought it in. The mechanic couldn't find anything.

Then in December, one night after picking the car up from the dealer for more repairs, (strange grinding noises) the Cube started lurching at all the red lights. We turned the car off twice but it kept doing it so we lurched all the way back to the dealership.

In total, our car stayed at the dealership over 31 days getting repairs and trying to be diagnosed with its failure to start and then twice starting by itself.

The Nissan Corporation was really naughty. They offered us extended warranties, which we said was silly since the car was now clearly rife with problems. They told us to take the warranties, no strings attached and that, "we were stupid to say no."

The sales manager started hiding from us and refused to return our calls.
Every time we left the car for the mechanic to try to find the starting problem, the Nissan Corporation would call us and threaten us, telling us to get the car off the lot or it would be towed.

So we finally contacted the Better Business Bureau. We got a hearing for arbitration. We brought video evidence of the car not starting. We brought witnesses who told about it starting by itself, lurching at the red lights, and even stalling when put into reverse. AND WE WON.   sort of.

We were one visit short on the not starting problem to qualify the car as a lemon. Never mind that it had been out of our use for over a month since we bought it six months before.

But not understanding that we were about to enter into a trap, we thought we had won and signed the agreement to the outcome of the arbitration. Nissan had to repurchase our car.

Here's the evil part. Nissan now can make up all sorts of math equations when deciding how much to pay us. The Lemon Law says give back what we paid, minus 10 cents a mile of usage. But since the car isn't technically a lemon, Nissan's math says, WE GIVE THEM BACK THE CAR AND PAY THEM $3,000 ON TOP OF THAT  since the car has depreciated in 8 months and we are upside down in our loan.


Needless to say, I was shocked! I was crying on the phone with the Nissan man who was eerily calm. Then he said that if we didn't like that offer, we could just keep the car and keep on paying for it. Never mind that this same keyless ignition problem was part of a 2.14 million vehicle recall last year on Nissan models from 2003-2005. Then, if you look on Nissan forums, just google nissan keyless ignition problems, you'll find that the problem didn't go away with just the recalled vehicles. In fact, just today I saw that the new 2011 Nissan Leaf has the same problem.

So what's so dangerous about a car that won't start? The same defect  can cause the car to start on it's own (Look in the news for people who have died in from Carbon Momoxide poisoning when their cars started on their own in the attached garage.) The defect can cause the car to idle roughly (the night it lurched at the red lights) and even stall while in gear (which ours did as well). But Nissan won't admit there is a problem. They think we should keep our car with an extended warranty. That's tantamount to offering an air freshener to those people whose cars turned on in the garages by themselves.



So there we are.

That's the shortened version. The longer more juicy parts I'll put in, starting from the beginning ofthe story and it's all fun...from nasty lying delaers to nasty lying Nissan reps (who got in trouble for lying).

If you have a Nissan of any type that exhibits odd keyless problems, I'd love to hear from you as I wait in limbo to see if this repurchase is going back to arbitration again..........  If you are a powerful person who knows how I should deal with Nissan, I'd love to hear from you too.  I really want to believe that there is some kind of justice that the universe hands out, but for now, I just need to get my story out. Maybe it will help someone else out there.