LTLFTcomposite said:
I'll be giving my future business to somebody who values me as a customer and is committed to my satisfaction, not somebody I can "win against".
And who might that be?
Toyota? They
agreed to pay a $1.2 BILLION fine to the U.S. Government about their handling of the unintended acceleration issue. Meaning, Toyota felt it was better to pay that amount, rather than risk litigation and get stuck with something even worse.
GM? In addition to covering up a safety defect that was discovered
before the cars were even put into production, their lawyers are now trying to get out of potential lawsuits over it by saying that the GM that built those cars is legally not the same corporation that now builds the Volt.
Ford? We all know of the infamous Ford Pinto memo that surmised it was cheaper to pay off potential burn victims than recall and retrofit existing cars.
Honda? Well to settle the class action by 2003-2009 Civic Hybrid owners who were given overstated fuel economy numbers, they gave those folks a whopping $100 and anywhere between $500 and $1000 off their next new Honda.
Even the high-end market is not immune from this. Go visit VWVortex's forums and see the complaints from the owners of certain Audi and VW models about how a 21st century engine consuming as much as a quart of oil per 1,000 miles is considered "normal" by VW, or how they paid $2500 to fix a failed electronic control module on the DSG transmission (or worse, about double that amount to replace the whole thing) after the car's 4 year/50k warranty has expired, but well before 100k miles, or how a crappy part for the mechanical (yes in the 21st century) fuel pump causes excessive cam wear.
And if you own a Porsche Boxster, your German performance machine could very well turn into a very large paperweight unless you have $12k to shell out for a new engine, it's covered under the original warranty, or you're one of the few who were extended a warranty by Porsche as part of yet another class-action suit. And if you think Nissan is playing games, here are Porsche's exclusions:
- Cars through 2001-2005 are covered.
- But if they were put in service more than 10 years or 130,000 miles ago, they’re not covered.
- If you bought it used and failed to pay for a Porsche warranty, you are not covered.
- The amount of financial assistance from Porsche is limited and may amount to less than half of the actual costs.
- All the usual Porsche warranty exclusions apply as well.
Source: http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/03/porsche-settles-ims-class-action-lawsuit-excludes-my-boxster-s/#more-481766" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
I'm not defending Nissan. I'm not saying what they did is ethical. What I am saying to those who say "I'm done with Nissan and taking my money to someone else", what makes you think that the other manufacturers, facing a similar situation, will not do something similar or worse?