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2001 Quest with premature ball joint wear - Feel like Nissan is playing games with me

I am having a problem with which I am curious if anyone else has experienced. I have a 2001 Quest with 42,000 miles on it (i.e. 6,000 miles out of warranty). Upon my PA state inspection, I was informed by Concordville Nissan that my minivan failed due to worn ball joints. Not the left or the right, but both. Additionally, they found numerous other non-related repairs that should be made (i.e. replace belts, clean throttle body, clean brakes, etc @ $1,300). Naturally, I refused the services since the car was running fine (i.e. not burning gas, not pulling, no uneven tire wear, no vibrations). I have spoken with some private Nissan mechanics and they state that one ball joint wearing in

42,000 miles is extremely rare; both wearing is nearly impossible at this milage, barring any accidents. My van has not be in any accidents, nor has it hit any major potholes. When I spoke with the dealer, they stated they would not cover this repair under warranty. With no repairs made, A second Nissan dealership found only the ball joints to be worn (est $400, plus an alignment $75). My car has been serviced only by Nissan dealers for minor services and LOF every 3,500 miles since it was bought new. This even included a LOF at 1,000 miles. All PA inspections were performed by NISSAN. Additionally, the van is very well cared for (i.e. garage kept).

My long winded question is this, if the ball joints wore prematurely, shouldn't the dealers have seen this during one of the service visits or previous PA inspections?

If anyone can shed light on this, I would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Steve

Reply to
SMB
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On 12/11/2004 1:06 AM US(ET), SMB took fingers to keys, and typed the following:

It would seem to me that they would have spotted the worn ball joints on previous inspections, unless all of that wear occurred in the last 12 months (unlikely under normal driving conditions, especially since they performed regular maintenance services). If the ball joints were a little worn on the previous inspection, but not enough to fail, I would think that they would have informed you of that and perhaps gotten the repair done under warrantee, if it was still in the warrantee period then. Your next step would be to call Nissan customer service, or the district manager, and bitch a little.

Reply to
willshak

Thanks alot for the advice. I'm going to try and go down that road. I'll keep the group updated on my progress. I'm going to look up the district manager name and phone number. I live in Chester County, PA if anybody happens to know who this person is. Thanks again.

Reply to
SMB

I would like to ad my experiences here. Honda (Canada) fixed, under warranty, a spring around the front shock of my 4 1/2 year old accord, long after the 3 year warranty, because they said it should not happen.

42K miles for a Quest maintained at the dealership to have ball joint failure is unacceptable by today's standards. I owned a Datsun 120Y in the 70's, a 280C in the 80's and I still drive a 94 quest ( all bought new) . The first thing to go in every one of those cars was the ball joints. The Quest was around 150,000 km when the joints were changed. ( My 90 accord still has all the original ball joints except one). Still. I find the rest of the car to be so reliable and solidly built that I overlook those things, so, I bought a new Sentra. And Nissan will continue to be right at the top of my list when it comes to choosing a car. ibm Canada
Reply to
ibm

On 12/11/2004 9:20 AM US(ET), SMB took fingers to keys, and typed the following:

Call the Nissan dealer where you had the inspection and repairs done and ask for the name and phone number. They are required to give it to you. If you have no luck with the district manager, go up the ladder in the heirarchy. You may have to go as far as NissanUSA. In a corporation, no one likes to have a customer go above their head. Just as an example of how things work in a corporation, many years ago, we were having a problem with Tandy computers at work. The local Tandy dealers installed the system and they were jerking around, with delays in the installation, not showing up for days, and having lots of installation trouble when they did show up, which was backing us up for weeks. They seemed like they were in no hurry to finish the work. Numerous phone calls to the local Tandy dealer did no good. Someone got the personal phone number of the CEO of Tandy at the time (John Roche). A call to him was very fruitful. Within hours of that call, we were getting phone calls from district managers and other subordinates, pleading with us not to call the CEO anymore, but to call them directly at any time. They even gave us their home phone numbers. Shortly after that, we had techs coming in from all over to finish the work.

Reply to
willshak

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