Nissan Qashqai - 1.6 litre petrol - Serious engine trouble

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Sun 7 Apr 2013 14:02
Nissan Qashqai - 1.6 litre petrol - Serious engine trouble - hants_otter
Hi - sorry that my first ever post on here is a tale of woe. I have until now been a very happy Qashqai owner, been happy with Nissan and their customer care and servicing.... until now.

To give you the overview: car is 3 and half years old, so only 6 months out of warranty. full service history with a Nissan dealership. last service only 6 months ago. done approx 42k miles.

about 2 weeks ago, an engine warning light came on (the oil pressure one - and yes you can probably tell, i'm no mechanic!). Rang the dealership, drove it up to them (making one hell of a racket and limped there). And there it stays with no work undertaken so far. The dealership need to strip down the engine to work out what has actually gone wrong, but say it is either the short block (will cost circa £5k) or a full block (wiil cost circa £8k). As you'll appreciate neither of these options are particularly attractive (considering the car is now worth £8-9k). The dealership aren't prepared to help me out given just out of warranty, so now in the hands of Nissan Customer services.

had a number of protracted conversations with them and now been escalated to their management. In a nut shell, they will as a maximum put 40% towards this, but only once a diagnostic is undertaken (ie an engine strip down) which is £460 for which i have to fully fund, and if at the end of that we don't agree on what happens next, it gets reassembled for another £460 at my expense.

my biggest worry / concern that i would like advice from others on is - as it seems something seriously mechanical has failed with the car, outside of my control, on a relatively young, looked after car - shouldn't Nissan be doing more? Economically, i dont think i can put more than £2k to this otherwise I may as well walk away - but i really dont want to as loved this car.

Anyone ever experienced anything like this or have any pearls of wisdom??
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Sun 7 Apr 2013 14:17
Nissan Qashqai - 1.6 litre petrol - Serious engine trouble - gordonbennet

These conversations with Nissan customer service by phone letter or email?

I'd be asking them to put their final offer in writing/email, if they want to know why tell them its for perusal by your solicitors, whether that may jog a better response i don't know but you appear to have little to lose.

Unfortunately you have compounded the situation by driving the car with low oil pressure, once the light came on the car should have been shut down and not restarted till checked over by a proper mechanic, its quite possible it was a fairly simple repair before but driving it with possibly zero oil pressure has most likely resulted in a wrecked engine.

If you can get no better response from Nissan, and to be honest i have my doubts, you might be better off getting a good independent garage to fit a used engine for you out of a write off.

You will know from the outcome where to spend your hard earned in future.

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Sun 7 Apr 2013 14:17
Nissan Qashqai - 1.6 litre petrol - Serious engine trouble - injection doc

I'm sorry but you drove it with the oil light on !!!!

I think you will find in the handbook its states if the oil light comes on DO NOT DRIVE !

Sounds like you would of done most of the damage driving it to the dealer ! once it starts knocking and rattling the damage is done ! game over.

I think 40% good will is good offer considering if you had stopped when the light came on damage would of been prevented.

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Sun 7 Apr 2013 14:29
Nissan Qashqai - 1.6 litre petrol - Serious engine trouble - hants_otter
Thanks guys. All rather depressing for me.

Only additional note - I did ring the dealership before taking it up to them and they advised I brought it up to them... Sounds like I need to drop that bit into the conversation with Nissan...
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Sun 7 Apr 2013 14:43
Nissan Qashqai - 1.6 litre petrol - Serious engine trouble - madf

Did you check the oil level when the warning light came on and before you drove to teh garage?

If not and the cause was lack of oil, it's your fault. And I would take any offer they made and run.

If you did and it had lots of oil, you are in a stronger position... because they may strip it down and say lack of oil.

But I imagine they will have checlked that first

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Sun 7 Apr 2013 14:55
Nissan Qashqai - 1.6 litre petrol - Serious engine trouble - gordonbennet
I did ring the dealership before taking it up to them and they advised I brought it up to them... Sounds like I need to drop that bit into the conversation with Nissan...

Thats will in all probability be denied, don't suppose you got the name of the person who told you to destroy your engine?

Hmm thinking about it, i'd be having a long chat to the dealer principal about this very thing.

Edited by gordonbennet on 07/04/2013 at 14:59

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