# Had a Lemon



## arzcatz3 (Jul 2, 2005)

Hi guys, this is my first post so please bear with me. My father who is in his 70s bought a 2002 Altima SL in the summer of 2002 I beleive. The car ran great for about a year but than one day while I was driving it, the speedometer stopped working. I was crusing at about 45 MPH and the speedemoter dropped to 0 MPH and wouldn't budge. I thought this was very odd but continued driving thinking maybe it was only some kind of "glitch." I drove home, turned off the car, turned it back on and the speedometer was fine. It was operating normally. 

Couple weeks later my dad reported the same problem to me. The speedometer was not working at all. I told him to bring it the dealership and he did. The dealership said it was some kind of "electronic" problem which I figured it was and they said the problem was fixed. My dad drove it off the lot and it was fine. A few days later... you guessed it... speedometer again not working. He brought it back, the dealership changed their story and said it had to do with the ECU in the car...dad drove it off the lot. AGAIN 2 Days later and the speedometer stopped working! We fought with Nissan for roughly a year until they finally declared the car a lemon and my dad got ALL of his monthly payments back and got out of the lease. Has anyone hear experienced ANY type of similar problem? Nissan went as far as flying out a technician from California ( We live in FL btw) and he said it was some type of electronic problem but couldn't fix it! Both Nissan and the dealership viewed this as a no big deal... but I told them to try driving with a non-functional speedometer that didn't want to move. I'm sorry for this rant but I feel like Nissan could care less about any defects in their cars. By the way, the Altima we had was an Auto, not even sure if they made a manual tranny.


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## Blank (Aug 21, 2003)

arzcatz3 said:


> Hi guys, this is my first post so please bear with me. My father who is in his 70s bought a 2002 Altima SL in the summer of 2002 I beleive. The car ran great for about a year but than one day while I was driving it, the speedometer stopped working. I was crusing at about 45 MPH and the speedemoter dropped to 0 MPH and wouldn't budge. I thought this was very odd but continued driving thinking maybe it was only some kind of "glitch." I drove home, turned off the car, turned it back on and the speedometer was fine. It was operating normally.
> 
> Couple weeks later my dad reported the same problem to me. The speedometer was not working at all. I told him to bring it the dealership and he did. The dealership said it was some kind of "electronic" problem which I figured it was and they said the problem was fixed. My dad drove it off the lot and it was fine. A few days later... you guessed it... speedometer again not working. He brought it back, the dealership changed their story and said it had to do with the ECU in the car...dad drove it off the lot. AGAIN 2 Days later and the speedometer stopped working! We fought with Nissan for roughly a year until they finally declared the car a lemon and my dad got ALL of his monthly payments back and got out of the lease. Has anyone hear experienced ANY type of similar problem? Nissan went as far as flying out a technician from California ( We live in FL btw) and he said it was some type of electronic problem but couldn't fix it! Both Nissan and the dealership viewed this as a no big deal... but I told them to try driving with a non-functional speedometer that didn't want to move. I'm sorry for this rant but I feel like Nissan could care less about any defects in their cars. By the way, the Altima we had was an Auto, not even sure if they made a manual tranny.


they did make a manual btw... and i think if nissan flew someone from cali to florida, they probably care about defects, and remember, they did give your dad ALL his money back even though the car was problem free for over a year, and after that the problem was sporadic...


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## blitzboi (Apr 13, 2004)

I would tend to agree with Mr. Blank, as it would appear that Nissan did take you seriously and made every attempt to resolve the problem to your satisfaction.

Frankly, you Americans should be glad to have your "lemon laws" down there, because up here in Ontario (Canada) there's a greater chance of hell freezing over than getting them to take back a lemon.

All we have is a program called CAMVAP (Canadian Auto Manufacturers Vehicle Arbitration Program), but it's totally funded by, you guessed it, the manufacturers, and the government is not involved in any way. And stats show that only about 10% of people who use CAMVAP get the car bought back... figures, eh? (just a little Canuck humour).

One of my first cars (a used '91 Ford Escort GT from Texas) had a broken speedo for over a year. Now, granted, it wasn't a late-model car like your Dad's, but my point is that a speedo isn't absolutely necessary. It's just as easy to drive with the flow of traffic, which is what most people do anyway.

In fact, on another car my family had about 10 years back, we used to pull the fuse on the instrument cluster just to stop the odometer numbers from advancing (we were over the lease mileage). And nobody ever had a problem or got a ticket with it like that.

As for problems, I have a 2005 Altima 3.5 SE (delivered May '04) that's already been in for warranty service once to replace the front-right strut. And even now I swear I can hear the same clunking noise again, but so far it hasn't come back fully.. whew!

Cheers!


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## skootz1 (Oct 12, 2005)

We have these laws because we fight for them. Why dont you do the same????????? Dont know why you would want to start slamming Americans because of the laws we make.


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