Just got back from the dealer and that is exactly what they told me: faulty seal on the oil filter. They showed me the filter and the rubber seal was completely loose.

They claim there's a "fail-safe" mechanism on the car where if there is not a sufficient amount of oil, then the car will not start at all. Can anyone confirm this?

After it was towed to the dealer, they started the car to "test" it out and it started ok. They then immediately shut off the engine.

I told them when I checked the dipstick in the garage, there was barely any oil on the very tip of the dipstick. They said the dipstick only goes down about 3 quartz and about 2 quartz are sitting below it.

I asked them if I could get an extended warranty but they said all they could do is "flag" it on my record and document for future reference. Then at that time, if anything goes wrong with my car and they can point to this faulty filter incident as the culprit, can any action be done with my car. Dealer claimed since they did not find any problems with my car currently, there is no other action necessary.

Dealer said they are simply the "middle man" in this situation and any further actions can only be taken up with the factory. I will FOR SURE be contacting corporate!

 

They are all bullsh*tters at any dealership. If i were you i would try reaching someone at corporate and be very firm with them. See what they say or offer to do, if they dont offer anything try asking them for some sort of warranty on the engine components to give you a little more peice of mind. I would also put a complaint in about the dealership, i find it amazing that they charge you a premium price and always provide poor quality work.

 

^^ BOO on them, that's weak!

I'd push for an extended warranty AT COST (which is waaaaay cheaper than what you or I normally pay). Definitely get corporate involved as much as possible too.

 

That's how america is..you pay top dollar for something..and in return you get a **** poor job

 

NO NO NO...I'll respectfully disagree with that broad statement.

 

Shouldn't it be for free since these *******s aren't even replacing the engine outright? Yeah fine, it didn't catch on fire or show overly obvious signs of engine abuse, but we can't know for sure how much damage there is... I think the least they can do is give extended warranty or life time engine replacement.


Tell these morons that u will release the pic of the leak and cause a publicity nightmare.

 

+1
And since you and I are dealing with the SAME morons... it's more than confirmed.

 

ugh

 

People that work at dealerships make me sick. If the seal was in fact faulty and loose, it either came that way from the factory or happened due to improper installation. I obviously don't know for sure, but if the filter seal was loose from the factory shouldn't it have felt loose when the lubed the seal before installing it? How did no one at the dealership catch the leak. Isn't that why you start the car after finishing to check for leaks, let it reach operating temp, and then turn it off and recheck for leaks?

I'm hoping someone can confirm this because I'm working off memory here (my dad's a lawyer and I worked at a law firm 2 summers ago). IIRC, if down the road something happens to your car and it is proven that this incident was the culprit, then any repair necessary at that time would be covered under warranty regardless of mileage or age of vehicle because the underlying problem (i.e. oil filter leaking) was not properly rectified at the time of the warranty service for fixing the oil filter problem. Like I said, this is from my memory only, I don't have access to lexisnexis to search for this stuff anymore .

Yes, contact corporate! I read through the warranty info on Infiniti parts (which I'm assuming were used) and as far as I can tell, all the dealer is required to do is repair/replace broken part. They did that and signed off saying everything was ok. Shtty business practice if you ask me, do the bare minimum and then leave you out to dry. What happened to working in good faith? You would think they would try to give you an extended warranty out of good faith to try to keep you business so you can tell others about how they stepped up to the plate, owned up to the situation, and made it right. I hope this makes sense, I'm falling asleep as I'm typing this.

 

^ whs, maybe the filter comes with a wrap around it while trying to take that off he nicked the seal and didnt even bother to notice, or in fact it was threaded on wrong or maybe the seal from the last filter came loose and was stuck to the engine and they didnt take taht off and installed the new filter on top causing the leak...

Obviously these are all possible theories and since they didnt allow you t stand underneath the car while checking on it there is no way to know.

 

Thanks for all the input guys. Much appreciated!

I will try to contact corporate today, but now I've been reading around that it's pretty much a waste of time. That corporate will not do squat and pretty much ignore any of my requests/complaints.

Has anyone had any experience dealing with corporate?

INFINITI DIVISION
Nissan North America, Inc.
Consumer Affairs Department
P.O. Box 47038
Gardena, CA 90247-6838
1-800-662-6200

 

I mean be polite but firm. I'm sure if you call yelling and cursing it won't go the way you want. Remember the people answering the phone are not the ones who hozed up your car. Motivate them to want to help you, politeness can get you everything sometimes. You can always revert to nasty and legal stuff if it doesn't work, but it's pretty tough to do all that in reverse.

 

^ +1

It's amazing how far a little politeness goes when dealing with people. OP, as far as I can tell from reading all your posts, it seems like what you're looking for is to make sure that if something happens later on as a direct result from this incident, you want to make sure you won't be out of pocket. Nothing unreasonable there, and make sure whoever you talk to understands that.

 

Not sure how Nissan/Infiniti does thing but over at Acura, the tech would turn the car on and then check for leaks before it leaves the lot.

I don't think there is anything the OP can do since there are no damages at the moment.

 

Just spoke with Consumer Affairs (1-800-662-6200) and here is the correct address for their Corporate offices:

Nissan North America
Consumer Affairs P3C
P.O. Box 685003
Franklin, TN 37068