Although I agree with what you said, your "bed side manner" leaves a LOT to be desired.

 

Sorry for not getting back. Between work; and everything else going on, I haven't had much time.

Quick update.
After discussing the issue with the dealer ship, they dropped the price of the tear down to a reasonable number. Roughly half of what they originally quoted. After inspection they "think" a connecting pin to the rod sheared causing the motor to fail. The motor was found to be properly maintained and not abused in any way. I have the photos and will post them when possible. The bottom line is that the dealership has now submitted a warranty claim to Infinity for the motor. That was on Thursday. They told us it would take 24 to 48 hours to hear back so expect the response on Monday.

We don't want to jump to conclusions as to what they will or won't approve. Once we have that we will let you know.

 

$7500 for a new engine? Hmm it may be cheaper to get a used one from a junkyard. On myg37 forums, people are getting replacement engines from dealer for $9k out of warranty, so your original quote of $15k was way too much.

Keep us posted! Hopefully they will replace it at no charge.

 

We know it was. However, the Dodge dealership contacted another Infinity dealer to price an engine. Turns out dealerships do this quite often they were quoted $9,600.00. Normally they do not mark up between dealers, but that is always a possibility. None the less, it is a very expensive engine. We have found good used motors that come with a one year warranty for under $3,000.00 and I am told even that can be brought down some.

We will wait and see.

 

I posted before that my car had some oil leaked. The dealer told me it was small crack from my headgasket and some coolant are seeping in. They fixed my car for free because i still have my elite warranty. my car never overheated on me and well maintain car. I guess this kind of stuff happens here and there. Now im just really curious how did it happen without you noticing any signs and your engine just blow up..

 

He never said $7500 for an engine. He said they gave him half off of the tear down. He is awaiting to see what they say about the engine replacement.

They needed to do a tear down to look inside the engine and see what caused the issue

 

Monday came and went. Apparently, Infinity Consumer Affairs asked the Infiniti dealership to supply a quote for the cost of replacement of the engine including labor. Finally today, after leaving several messages, Infinity Consumer Affairs called my wife back. The bottom line is they will not help at all and basically told us to pound sand. Keep in mind this is after the dealership tore down the engine, found no abuse or misuse and agreed that the car had been serviced correctly. Keeping in mind that the car has 77,000 miles on the odometer, it is totally within their right to not warranty the engine. It is also my right is to never do business with Infiniti or Nisan again. I have already been instrumental in the loss of two sales for their cars and will hopefully be able to prevent even more sales. My next door neighbor was looking at a Q50. Not any more. The lady I car pool with's brother was looking at an Altima. He was waiting to see what they were willing to do as his decision was based on what transpired. His second choice was a Honda. You know where that is going.

The service writer at the dealership was shocked that Infiniti would not step up to the plate especially after the dealership had requested a warranty replacement. At this time, I feel that Infiniti Consumer Affairs lured us into spending money to get the motor torn down, and that from the very beginning they knew that they would leave us hanging out to dry. I can't prove that, it is just how it feels. Not much I can do about that now but if I had known, I would not have let them tear it down and I would have just gone down a different road. None the less, we will put a used motor into it and already have a price quote which is reasonable. It will not be done at the Infiniti dealer at all. After we get the car back up and running we will decide on whether to dump it or run it into the ground. That is up to my wife. Right now she is not a happy person. I know most of you here have a great respect for the brand. Frankly I did too until today.

The photos are below... That last one shows motor parts in the pan.

 

Well, I can understand your frustration, but most dealers would do what Infiniti does when the car is out of warranty.

It won't matter whether you get an Infiniti, Lexus, Mercedes, Audi, or any other luxury brand.

If the dealer never promised you a free engine replacement if it was determined to be serviced properly then you should've already cut your losses and gone with a used engine. It was never worth it to try to determine the cause of the issue if the car was out of warranty anyways.

I don't believe Infiniti Consumer Affairs told the dealer to have you pay to tear down the engine. The money (which is all labor) goes to the dealer, not Infiniti Corporate, so there really isn't an incentive for Consumer Affairs to make you pay for it. It sounds like the dealer was the one who screwed you over and gave you hints that it was going to be replaced if you paid for the teardown, but they never got any authorization from Infiniti Consumer Affairs before doing so. If anything, the dealer should refund the cost of the teardown to you as goodwill. Don't fault a company for adhering to its warranty terms that were provided to every customer. You may have just had a dealer who thought they could "change the rules" and have you pay for it just so they don't lose out at all for the labor costs for the claim submittal. Dealers can actually pull a lot more strings and if you did service your car regularly at the dealer, they may have helped you more and perhaps would've replaced the engine free.

I had to deal with Infiniti Consumer Affairs when I bought my vehicle. I had to fight tooth and nail to get only a couple hundred dollars and usually they give you a check addressed to the dealer of your choice for the repair. I was suspicious when that didn't happen to you after warranty expired.

As for not getting another Infiniti, I agree that it is your right. I personally would have considered another brand too, but I tend to not like to keep with the same brand anyways.

 

Believe what you want... Infiniti Consumers Affairs told us we had to pay.. Not the dealership.....

 

Infiniti Consumer Affairs specifically said that you HAD to pay for the engine teardown that was out of warranty?

What was their reason for it? Did they specifically tell you that you were going to get a new engine if your old engine was well maintained? It really doesn't sound like something they would force you to do. If you had recordings of these conversations, you could actually file a lawsuit against them. I would consult a lawyer if I were you if it really happened the way you're describing it.

It sounds like there's some miscommunication and misunderstandings going around.

I would also like to reiterate my previous point: it is unfortunate this situation happened to you, but this isn't just because you had an Infiniti. This could happen to anyone with any brand of car. Toyota, Honda, etc all brands would act similarly given the same circumstances. I'm really sorry that you had to deal with this, but you probably shouldn't purposely try to steer people away from a particular brand just because a freak accident happened to you which could happen to any brand and model of vehicle.

I still agree that Infiniti dealer or Consumer Affairs screwed you over on that cost of teardown. There was never a good reason for doing so unless they could guarantee a no cost engine replacement if engine was properly maintained and found the cause to be an internal issue.

 

Infiniti Consumer Affairs would not consider our claim without the teardown and pictures. Based on the conversations I had with them, I had an expectation that they might cover half the cost, but they would not commit to anything without the teardown and pictures. Since I knew it had not been abused, the only way to show them was to authorize the teardown. I never expected them to come back with "unfortunately we are unable to offer you any financial assistance at this time." Even if they had offered us an amount which sent us down the path of putting a used engine in anyway, offering us nothing is insulting. If there had been a reasonable offer, we might have considered using whatever equity we had in the vehicle to trade it in at the dealership for a replacement. Their response has forever killed any desire to have another Infiniti or Nissan product.
What is the purpose of a Consumer Affairs department if not to assist in consumer relationships?
You are wrong about all Companies would treat us the same way. There is usually some leeway when something happens close to the end of warranty, especially for something out of the ordinary.

 

Man that really sucks. It's one thing for Infiniti to say, "Screw off, it's out of warranty" (which is honestly what I would have expected). It's on a completely different level to tell the customer they can pay to have the motor torn apart, tell them they didn't do anything wrong, then tell them "Screw off, it's out of warranty."

I'd have a serious problem with them expecting me to pay for that teardown when they apparently never had any intention of considering some kind of coverage.

 

So basically, Infiniti Consumer Affairs didn't actually tell you from the beginning that it was out of warranty and you would be denied no matter what happened?

You can call back and tell them they were the ones who made you pay for the teardown in the first place. Argue with them and say that if they were planning to deny you in the first place, why would they ask you to pay for the teardown? The least they could do is offer you a refund of the teardown cost.

You have good reason to get that money back. There was no reason for the teardown if they already had plans to deny the claim.

You weren't clear in your previous posts what exactly happened. My point is most companies would deny claims that are out of warranty. If your Lexus or Acura broke down even 1000 miles after warranty, they would most likely deny the claim, unless you had someone fighting for you like a dealer or someone higher up who can pull strings.

 

Anyone old enough to remember when cars had a TWELVE MONTH or 12,000 MILE warrantee?

I agree your situation sucks, but warrantees are much better now than they were 40 years ago. Back then when a car had 100K on it, it was worn out.

I just had a thought though, you say you have all the service records (oil changes?), most major brand of oils have a "oil related failure" warrantee for the life of the car now. You might want to check into that now that you have a "oil related failure".

 

You would need receipts of the oil being purchased and all the oil changes done at recommended OCI. The engine failure was determined to not be caused by oil related failure, so this warranty does not apply.

Failure of oil usually means sludge buildup, or something related to oil. These oil companies are worse to deal with than your own dealer. They'll figure out any possible way to get out of an engine repair.