Being in the business, I agree that legal action would be the next logical step if you can get no satisfaction by being composed and patient with the service manager. However...do not mention legal action, lawyers, attorneys, or anything of that nature until you are done and cannot get what you need any other way, because as soon as the word "lawyer" is mentioned, all converstaion will probably stop and anything you would have attained will be lost by any other means. Not a good thing. You did the right thing...so continue to, no matter how bad you want to slap the SOB. By you being firm, but agreeable...but not being a doormat, you will probably get what you need, and the idiot that grabbed your hand will probably be looking for another job.

 

Man, that guy needs some serious training in customer service.
You did the right thing bro.-- you kept your composure, which is more than he did. You also didn't get physical with him and that's best.
As the guys say, persue it with his boss and demand satisfaction, as well as talking to INfiniti customer service.

Keep us up on what happens, and most of all, keep your cool.
Colin

 

Again, thanks for all your support.

The reason I didn't do the alignment first because the TSB I found has the exact same symptom and I was able to replicate it. When I brought in the car yesterday morning, the moron already argued with me and said that if the car drifts within 7 seconds, it has nothing to do with the speed. At the time I had already forgotten exactly what TSB stated, but did recall it was supposed to be during highway speed. I said it was more noticable during highway speed. After I dropped off the car and left, I was thinking of course it has to do with the speed, how else could a car be drifting completely to the next lane within 7 seconds. It definitely wouldn't do it when the car is doing 25 MPH.
It just seem to me that this moron's arguement was, here we go again with this guy bringing up TSB.

And here's what TSB states:
NOTE: A vehicle is said to drift, if, at 60 mph:
- The vehicle completes a lane change in less than 7 seconds and
- the driver doesn't try to steer the vehicle straight and
- all four wheels pass into the other lane during this time (7 seconds) and
- the vehicle is being driven on a road with a very slight crown of less than 1%

So they were incompetent to replicate the problem when I brought in the car for the first time and yesterday they were able to replicate it and replaced the right front compression rod?
Wouldn't you have them check the TSB first if it were you able to replicate it? Besides, I didn't ask them to put it on the alignment machine. I asked them to check the TSB and if that doesn't fix the drift, then they should advise me that the possible fix is to have alignment done, BUT I will decide whether or not I want my G to put on their machine.

I have been troubleshooting throughout my career, I go through elimination steps. Eliminating the TSB that has the same symptom is the logical step to take. Tell a customer what they did and advise the customer of what possible solutions are out there should be another logical step for them. And the customer will have a chance to decide how they want to spend their dollars from their own pocket, not the dealer.

My G already has 31K. If I recall correctly, the drift already was present when I first got the car. And it got worse over time. But I chose to ignore it for 2+ years until 6 months ago. I drive between SJ and Sac every other week. My arms were soared after 2 hour drive. Especially my left arm because that's what I use the most and had to use my right occasionally because it got so uncomfortable.

My brother in law just did the alignment for his I30 with the friend I mentioned. He said that a lot of the Nissan cars has this drift problem. So if any of you out there who just bought the car that has this problem, take it in rightway to have them check.

Well, about time to call the manager. I'll report back the result later today.

 

The manager Chuck Hunter doesn't work weekends. I guess the moron gets to live happily for another weekend... I will update the result Monday.

 

I don't know what Infiniti's policy is, but when I had my Ford, the alignment was only covered for the first 10K miles or so, along with the balancing on the tires (and I think they would only remedy an alignment problem once during that timeframe free of charge). I'd be surprised if Infiniti considers alignment to be something warranteed for the full bumper to bumper warranty period. I'm not saying the SA wasn't a jerk, and that they shouldn't have resolved the problem per the TSB. However, a car with 31K miles is unlikely to be covered for a free alignment. They should however run it by him before doing the service.

 

In my warranty booklet it states that alignment and balance is covered for the first year only.
I'm north of the border.....not sure about you guys south of the border.
C.

 

call the region manager and write a letter to the region head quarters to file complain,

 

I'm in no way claiming that they should cover the alignment cost. In fact, I knew that they won't cover it. The fact of the matter is that they didn't have my consent to put my G on the alignment machine. What I told them to do is to check the TSB symptom described because I was able to replicate the same. Then advise me if the alignment is needed since I knew that it would cost me $99 to do it at the dealer and my friend's shop would charge me much less than that.

So, if you were able to replicate the problem described in TSB, wouldn't you ask them to check the TSB first?

It's not like I have so much time to read all the TSBs and then try to replicate every TSB issue and ask them fix it.... I think this is what a lot of service advisors think, that we, customers, want to rip them off and make them work!! NO, I had the problem, checked the TSB list then found there were already people reported the same problem because Infiniti recognized that.

This was from my original post:

I need 3rd opinion... Here's what I signed this morning when I brought in the car: "CUST STATES THERE IS A DRIFT TO RIGHT CK & ADVISE ALIGN IF NEEDED", then there's "$99" for Labor all the way to the right of that line.

Another fact is how would you feel if the customer service rep got physical with you? No customer should be treated as what I experienced!!

 

I'm more upset and shocked!!! I couldn't believe my ears on what I heard from his boss.

Spoke to the Manager this morning. He was aware of what happened when I called and his side of the story is that I yelled and abused them. I said, I maybe talking a bit loud as you can imagine when a person is upset, but in no way I was yelling.
I gave him several points and how the moron got physical with me why I didn't get a call before the alignment was done.

At around 4:30pm, he called back with his investigative result and said that they said I was the one being physical at first.

Customer/employee interviewed i was out of line, I was on the verge of being violence and the way I grabbed the paper, was the one whose being physical at first!!

So, the way I grabbed the paper was being physical and I should be chirpping like a bird when I'm not being treated fairly as a customer. And I was shocked how he said I was being physical at first!!!

During the conversation I said, "How was i being physical at first?? is that what your adivsor told you?"
He said, "you are focusing on physical and you are not focusing on the entire situation." then he said, "How much longer do we need to discuss?"
I was more outraged and said, "becauase that wasn't the fact. I was treated unfairly, I was being treated physically is a big part of it. I'm talking this now that was a very big part of it. like i said, it's not like I can't afford the $99."
He said, "That's not the point".
I said, "Yes, that is the point!! As a customer i was bing treated like that, that IS the point!"
He said, "I'm sorry that's your perception. but the perception of everyone else around is a different story."
I went on and talking just a bit with confused and upset voice.
I said, "I'm gonna have to report it to your corporate office."

I reported this whole thing with the consumer affair. They said it will be investigated, but the customer will not be able to know the result. It would be an internall investigation.

So, is this it? I'm supposed to take all this crap from the Sacramento Infiniti??

 

You should post this on fresh alloy and any other Infiniti forum you can find.

 

Call your lawyer.

 

Wow! It seems as if they don't care about your opinion or business. If it truely was an issue and they are claiming that you were the aggressor I don't think that they would have waited for you to call. If I were the service manager and one of my employees felt threaten, I would have been all over it and calling you to get your story ASAP. It sounds like a case of CYA at the dealership.

Bottom line.....Take your car to another dealership for service or find a good mechanic.

 

**** that. Post your experience of this thread on every damn Nissan/Infiniti site you can lay your hands on. Let everyone (and internet is a powerful tool) hear your story, and let them know that this kind of bull**** can't go on. Good luck to you, you handled it well. I would have gone to jail. But that's just me.
Alex

 

Send a nice, polite letter (preferably written by a lawyer but signed by you) explaining the situation to the President of Nissan--in Japan. Copy Infiniti USA and the General Manager (not the guy you talked to) of the Dealership. Almost guarantee that SOMEBODY will get back to you.

 

WoW that guy has some issues I believe if I were you the cops would have had to be called. I had a alignment issuse with my STI and I called the dealership told them that the steering wheel was off center and I could prove that it was a factory defect since I had three friends with STI's who's car had same problem and of course they fixed it free of charge but sctrached up the front of my car while puting/taking it off the rack but they also fixed that for free and we complain about dealerships here you got it bad there.