# Customer service uk



## MARKTHEEVILDUDE (Nov 23, 2006)

I don't know how many other owners have had these, but i just received a call from a company acting on the behalf of nissan uk asking me about the service i have received from Nissan Uk since i have had my car and in response to complaints i have made. 

I don't know how many of you have heard me talk about my experiances with nissan uk customer services, but all i can say is that after about 30seconds, he knew what most of my answers were(yup, that'll be negative). 

I got to spend some time making him write essays about the poor customer service given by nissan, and although i don't think my dealership has been particuly helpful, Nissan uk has been a joke, i have called so many times with problems(mainly the same unresolved thing) and if i managed to get through to an operator and if they were able to understand english i was nearly always told i would be called back by a member of either the backroom management or technical department, two of nissans most mythical areas of service. Out off the many times i called, i got called back and got a positive response once!

I think my xtrail is a great car, i love the way its styled, and i think its great how nissans go on and on. These are reasons i went for a nissan, but if you want your customers to come back, surely you need to back this up with good customer service. I think that Uk customers are needlessly being put off buying another nissan, despite the fact they are such great cars.

How many other people have had problems with nissan uk, how do other nissan national customer services work? How do people that have had nissans in europe for years feel service has changed since customer services joined with renault?

I don't want people to think i don'tlike nissans, i think there great cars, but anyone looking at this whilst thinking of buying a nissan from a dealership, my advice to them would be to not waste the extra money that it will cost. :lame:


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## The Mad Hat Man (Oct 3, 2006)

I hear wot yu is sayin, but most stealers are the same. As yu know, I am also involved on a Landrover forum, and they say the same things.

Most stealers now dont employ Automotive engineers - they use bit swappers - and charge us £80 an hour for the privilege.
My next door neighbour bought a 60K Mercedes and they didnt do a full service (didnt change plugs etc) - and that cost him £1300! - their answer was "it didnt need it" - but they still charged full cost.


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## aussietrail (Sep 24, 2004)

In my case in Sydney-Australia, I have had enough with the dealer that I bought my exy from (new) and complained formally about them to Nissan Australia and they listened. The next day I get a call from the service manager of this dealership apologizing and asking me to come over to fix the problem...the silly problem was that I had not been given a PIN code for my head-unit at the time of purchasing, so when I disconnected the battery, I lost my radio and needed my PIN, my dealer wanted to charge me for giving me the code (which they didn't bother providing at the time of purchasing)

Needless to say I refused to go back there (this dealer is only 10 minutes walk from my place) and the code was given to me by Nissan Australia head office.

Since then I found a much more understanding dealer that is not only reasonably priced, but also passionate about cars as I am and we spend hours talking about the car, the engine and the different mods that I have done (some of which were done while I was under the Nissan warranty)

Their customer service is superb and they will explain everything they have done to the car and if something doesn't need to be changed, they clearly mark it on the invoice as "no charge"...Having the K&N filter is a good example of that.

Anyway, in relation to my dealings with Nissan Australia and the many times I called and emailed them seeking clarification on a recall or an sticking matter that members of the Aussie Forum asked, I have always received either a call back or an email from the head of their technical department and the email was structured in a way which would allow me to formally post the content on the forum for members to refer to as evidence should they ever encounter a problem with a stubborn dealer.


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## Sulphur man (Sep 6, 2005)

The UK car-sales business is infected with shysters. They, in turn, are being squeezed by the UK distributors, who are greedy bastards - like a lot of brits. Therefore, the shysters employ bit-swappers (as mentioned) and these in turn are governed by 'customer buffers', whos sole job seems to be to deny that anything ever goes wrong with any of their cars, unless it's so catastrophic that the car actually goes pop.

It's all about profit protection.


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## MARKTHEEVILDUDE (Nov 23, 2006)

Nissan customer services in australia seems to be a little more of what i would expect of a brand name such as nissan. I can't describe the dissapointment i feel with customer services in the uk, i mean there have been a couple of times when they have actually argued with me, saying that i am not the owner and the car hasn't been sold to me, even thou its was a nissan approved car! And despite it being under the used approved warranty, other dealerships have demanded i find out about the warranty provider, before they will do warranty work.(something my dealership don't want to tell me so i don't go elsewhere)

I mentioned recently in a post on another subject that i was looking into extending my warranty, after nissan told me again, how the car had not been sold so had no warranty to extend and the mythical 'we're call u back' service, i went with a 3rd party warranty service, who actually want my business and can actually understand english. aswell as being cheaper.

I laughed recently when on tv's watchdog, they were trying to speak to renault about a dangerous fault on there clios, that they refuse to recognise. And when the film crew went to customer services head office(they are joint run) to speak about it, there was a huge nissan badge on the wall diresctly behind them as they were told there was no one available to comment! now where have i seen that before!


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## aussietrail (Sep 24, 2004)

MARKTHEEVILDUDE said:


> i went with a 3rd party warranty service, who actually want my business and can actually understand english


Mark, are you saying that Nissan UK customer service line diverts to Japan or Renault? hehehehehe


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## MARKTHEEVILDUDE (Nov 23, 2006)

i wish that it did divert to Japan, my 'thank you' in japanese, is better than thier English. in the uk i think renault and nissan have combined customer services and all different numbers go thru to different brand departments, its all run by the same people and when researching buying a nissan, i saw some angry comments caused by poor customer service since they combined, it was practicaly the only bad point not linked to diesel xtrails, but i wish i had listened to it more! I bought from a dealership to avoid previous problems with cars, i won't ,ake the same mistake with nissan again.


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## The Mad Hat Man (Oct 3, 2006)

Dont get me wrong - I aint condoning it - far from - but it appears to be the same with main dealers from all companies. All luvvy duvvy till yu bought then "go and leave us in peace!" At least the X-T is fairly reliable (kiss of death), so we dont need to see the manuf very often


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## uk_owner (Jul 3, 2006)

I have mentioned many times in this forum about problems I have had with Nissan dealers and Nissan UK, and I can assure you that unless their attitude changes in the future, I will not buy another Nissan which is such a shame as I wouldn't mind a closer look at the new X Trail coming out later this year.

I have worked within the motor trade all my life and currently work for an automotive technical publisher, which gives me a unique view and a more in-depth understanding of the various manufactures and how they score with regards to reliability and customer service.

Mad Hat Man, you are right about Land Rover and Mercedes, both of these manufactures suffer with poor after sales and I am sorry to say that they also suffer with quality issues (Mercedes has made public apologies and promises of improvements over build quality).

Another marquee that suffers with poor after sales is Renault, and who have Nissan just jumped into bed with? Oh dear!! Renault came out WORST in the 2006 reliability listing in Autocar early this year, Nissan was about 12th I think. I don't remember who came first.

I think in the future, I may look at a Kia with their 7 year warranty. But for now, as my X is about to finally leave warranty, I will start maintaining her myself.

NB: Does any one know where to get a replacement front fog lamp that doesn't write off the car? Nissan want £163 for a new lamp because one of mine has a cracked glass from a stone chip. Apparently you can't just buy and replace the lens.


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## flynn (Jun 23, 2006)

uk_owner said:


> Another marquee that suffers with poor after sales is Renault, and who have Nissan just jumped into bed with?


Or you could argue the opposite. Carlos Ghosn turned around Nissan after he joined in 1999. He's now become the COE of Renault too so he might do the same for them. 

Retail customers in the UK get a raw deal from *all* car manufacturers because we aren't so important to them. The reason is probabably because so few cars are bought privately here and the majority are bought for by companies and fleet owners. That's partly due the historical tax policy that has only recently partly changed where it's more tax-efficient to run a company car than buy your own. Because of the huge discounts to fleet buyers in the UK the retail price is jacked up so that the manufacturers can maintain their average selling price. 

Another effect on retail new car buyers is that cars bought heavily by the fleet-owners depreciate heavily. Garage services are affected too because drivers are less concerned about poor value when it's not their car. For most mass-produced cars everything is geared towards corporate buyers in the UK and retail buyers aren't so important to the manufacturers.


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## GFB (Oct 16, 2006)

Actually Carlos was with Renault before having any links with Nissan. He served as executive vice president of Renault since 1996. When Renault bought into the ailing Nissan, they send Carlos as new CEO of Nissan. Carlos Ghosn is known for cost-cutting and streamlining things. Well, Nissan was turned around, and yes, he now also became CEO of Renault where he originally came from.


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## flynn (Jun 23, 2006)

That's right. His CV is all over the net including Wikipedia.


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## GFB (Oct 16, 2006)

Strangely, already a couple of times I picked up that people seem to forget his earlier Renault connection – maybe because in Nissan’s case the result was more noticeable and he had more influence.

Wondered whether his cost-cutting measures ever impacted on customer service directly?


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## The Mad Hat Man (Oct 3, 2006)

why not ask him


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