My transmission won't shift higher than third gear, so I took it to the Infiniti dealership. It's under 6 years old and only has a little under 50,000 miles and should be covered by the powertrain warranty. However, the dealership is telling me that my car has "too much transmission fluid", which indicates that someone put more in. They say it's leaking fluid, so that I need a new front seal (or something like that) which will run me $1500. They also say that maybe having too much fluid is what broke the transmission (which sounds pretty farfetched to me). Furthermore, they're saying that if I need a new transmission, the warranty is voided because there are "signs of tampering," e.g., scratches on the transmission (which he says look fresh, though I don't know how one could distinguish between old and new scratches), the excess fluid, and I'm not sure what else. They say that if they fixed it and tried to get this under warranty, it would be kicked back at them and they'd have to pay for it themselves. They infer that I'm holding out on them, that I've actually had work done that I'm not telling them about.

Facts: I have never had any repairs except for at Infiniti dealerships, with the exception of a handful of oil changes and a friend changing my brake pads a year ago. My most recent work was the 45,000 mile checkup at a different dealership. I bought the car used, but that was in January of 2006. I have done nothing wrong, and it really sounds like they're going the extra mile to keep from covering me under the warranty.

I don't know what to do except continue going up the chain of command and telling my story. But if each higher-up hears that it "looks like it's been tampered with", I don't know how I'll get around it. Any advice would be very welcome.

 

go to another dealership or mechanic for a second opinion.

 

Have you ever had a transmission service done by a dealer?

 

Call Infinitis 800-number And Tell Them Your Dilema I Hate When Stealerships Act Like That

 

**** the dealership. Tell them they are full of $hit and to just do the damn work. Stealerships suck. Good luck bro.

 

I figured they input all this information in their computer so that all the dealerships will have the same information. It's a little over $100 for the diagnostic; I'd prefer to not have to pay it again if they're just going to go on the word of the first dealership.

As a minor update, it appears that perhaps they just don't know jack about transmissions. I spoke to a mechanic who doesn't think that leakage from the front seal has anything to do with having too much transmission fluid, but rather is a clear sign that there's something wrong with the transmission internally. I guess I'll see what the consumer affairs 1-800 people have to say about it.

Not in the slightest. Besides the 45K checkup, I've just had them do the standard original warranty procedures, fix some door fabric, and, of course, my multiple problems with the cd player.

 

get the service manager's name and call the corporate office and start complaining. Don't give up. The dealers will steal ur money away any way they can so call corporate and start complaining with attitude.

 

^terrible advice. you need more tact when dealing with stealerships.

try taking the car the the dealer where it was serviced last (the one at 45000miles). hopefully they are more sensible.

the dealer i bought my car from refused to recognize that my 6mt tranny was shifting rough. so i took it to another local dealer, they drove it and agreed with me. they are replacing the tranny and clutch under warranty when i take it in tomorrow.

all this was after i recently had my tranny serviced, so i'm sure there were some litle scratches or wrench marks on the drain plug...

 

Just got off the phone with the Infiniti customer affairs 800 number, and they are absolutely no help. She explained that each dealership was independently owned and operated, that there is no contact between the dealership and warranty people, so that they have to take the recommendation of the dealership, whatever it may be. Which is all the more frustrating when it's now become clear that the service department doesn't know what they're doing. She said that my only recourse was to take it to a different dealership and have it rechecked. This of course means that I will have to either tow it to the new dealership (which would be crazy expensive), or go superslow in second or third gear to another dealership. And since all the dealerships are general mechanics, it's hard to know if they'll have any idea what to do with a transmission. And it will cost another $100 to perform the diagnostic.

When speaking to the customer affairs lady, I compared it to bringing my car in with shifting problems, and having them tell me that it was because my tire pressure was low and denying me the warranty, because that's how faulty their logic is, but this analogy didn't make sense to her.

And to the guy who said to take it back to the 45K place, no can do - I've moved four and a half hours away from there. It was immediately after driving across the state of Georgia during my move that I had this problem.

 

Tell them the scratches are from the other dealer. Show them the serive receipt

 

if it is for a item covered by warranty there is no charge for diagnostic. just like my tranny issue, or when my fuel shutter valve prevented complete fuel-up, or my creaky seat - all diagnosed and repaired with no charge to me.

the logic in your analogy is not completely correct. your car has shifting problems and they tried to tell you that the tranny was overfilled/tampered with, these parts are related. at least the dealer got that much correct. your tires are a separate component of the car, so i can see how the helpline person got confused.

you need to take it to another dealer. try asking other G35driver members in your area for advice on reputable dealers (if there is such a thing).

 

you're right, they do share the same database. but if you are having a problem and want a second opinion, they still need to diagnose it. i'm confused why you have to pay $100 to have them look at this. are you out of warranty?

 

I'm out of the basic warranty, not of the powertrain warranty. So the idea is that the charge $100 for the diagnostic in case whatever is wrong is not covered under the warranty. If it isn't, they keep the $100. If it is, they reimburse the $100 under the warranty. Canucklehead's diagnostic was covered because they agreed that the entire problem was under warranty.

There are two other dealerships in the city (and just my luck, I went to the one in the middle, meaning that I will probably need to just choose one or the other and not try both). I'm on the fence as to whether I should call and explain what this dealership is saying and just see if they agree with their logic. But if I do that, and they do agree, then there would be nothing I could do, whereas if I just took it to them, maybe they wouldn't see the scratches as anything significant. And I know that the transmission is one of the most complex parts of a car, so I have little faith that bringing it somewhere new would help since they're not specialists.

But for those in the Atlanta area, I'm at the Roswell Infiniti, so if you've had any transmission success with the Marietta or Gwinnett Infiniti dealerships, I'd love to hear about it. The Marietta people have been great to me, but just on the little things that they pretty much had to repair that took no particular know-how.

This is such a nightmare - I'm young and recently unemployed, and this would pretty much take half my savings to pay for. And I can't go on job interviews or looking for jobs besides the internet until I get the car back.

 

Keep trying bro...i had the same problem when my car overheated and the dealership said it looked like someone had tampered with the radiator and they wanted to charge me $800 to put a new one in....i called consumer affairs and complained like crazy, about a week later after talking to everyone i could i got a new radiator, thermostat, upper and lower hoses and all new fluid.....motto of the story is...dont give up on these punk *** dealerships...

 

Any input on how you went about it? Like I said above, the person I talked to said they didn't have anything they could do and just had to go by what the dealership said, unless I took it to another dealership and got a better opinion. Did you ask for someone beyond the original customer affairs person, or did you just keep speaking to different ones until you got someone who would help? And did you do anything besides rehashing the same story that this dealership was trying to screw you over?