Nissan Altima

A) involves an issue which could kill both my husband and myself every time we get into our Altima (the severity of which Nissan of Turnersville and Nissan Corporate were completely and totally apprised of in every aspect, both by past lawsuits and customer presentations), which involves a powering down and stalling issue that randomly occurs in the middle of intersections, only resolvable by having to start the vehicle no less than 3 times before being able to move it; and B) involves Nissan calling us 2 months later to “discuss your last service appointment” -- when we took the call, thinking they wanted to repair the stalling issue, they instead attempted to “smoke tickets” over the phone, a term used in the industry where the service tech tries to upsell very expensive services that are not needed. I will explain each issue below.

We own a 2013 Nissan Altima, which has a random stalling issue, as described above. It’s absolutely terrifying each time it happens, as it randomly stalls no less than 2 or 3 times in a row, while cars and trucks barrel by! It’s a frantic scenario and you’re left sitting there to hope that it will start before you can get clobbered. Our highly skilled auto mechanic checked the car out twice to resolve the issue, to no avail.

I then called Nissan, who stated they were not familiar with any such problems, but that for $125, they could do a diagnostic check. I then decided to do a google check for “Stalling Issues with 2013 Nissan Altimas” – and I found hundreds of complaints with the same problem we had! The cause was in an experimental transmission called Pure Drive, and the only fix to the problem was to replace the transmission.

I also found out about a lawsuit filed by someone named Christopher ** in September of 2018, who had the same stalling issue and was met with the same rudeness and uncaring attitude from Nissan as we had been when trying to look for a resolution to this dangerous problem (like we asked for this!) It turned into a Class Action lawsuit and an out-of-court settlement had been reached, with Nissan agreeing to pay for the full repair of these stalling issues until March 30, 2020. I brought our car in on June 1st, totally unaware of this deadline at the time, and because of that, our lives were deemed less valuable than the lives of those customers whose transmissions Nissan did agree to fix! We had no way of knowing about this settlement or lawsuit, so our disadvantage turned into their monetary advantage.

I wrote a caveat on my invoice when we picked up our unrepaired Altima, stating that I was picking up the car in protest, with a detailed explanation of why, including how Nissan refused to repair the life-threatening problem in our vehicle even though they were fully aware what the cause of the stalling was. We have copied this statement and put it with our Wills, in the event we get killed or maimed in a car wreck due to our Nissan’s faulty transmission issues. Our children have been made aware of all this, as well.

With regards to the smoking ticket issue, the Nissan service rep told me when we called back, that our car needed a new front end suspension and was leaking fluid (call was recorded). When I told him there were no stains on our driveway, he stated, "well maybe it isn't leaking now but it will be" -- this is what we're dealing with when dealing with Nissan! Never again!

Shame on you Laura and shame on you Nissan. I will NEVER purchase another Nissan because of the downright CRUEL way in which Nissan does not take responsibility for their screw ups, actions, or happiness/dissatisfaction of customers. At this point, they are KNOWINGLY selling lemons to honest, hardworking people. If someone goes into a dealership asking to buy an Altima, they should run a CVT test immediately and be UPFRONT with the status of all of their defective cars of the same variety.

I wish I could give negative 100 stars. Nissan is truly the most crooked company I have come in contact with to date. Their brand integrity is extremely compromised and I am positive they will see a diminishment in brand loyalty. My friends and family tell me I should take the necessary steps to sue this company, and I believe I will look into that immediately.

Guaranteed no one in my circle will buy from Nissan ever again. We are all disgusted by this company’s lack of ethics. I will make sure if anyone around me is searching for a car they know about this ordeal and to stay far, far away from this stingy company. If you are considering buying an Altima or any other Nissan vehicle, please take this message as a warning and DO NOT DO IT. Save yourself the headaches and emotional turmoil.

On Thursday, 07/09/2020 I got in my car and tried to start it and I got the message "Key ID Incorrect" which was interesting because I was able to unlock and lock the car and even power it on. After a while my S/O came and said, "Let's try and see if it's the battery." So when we opened the hood of the car and looked at the battery there was a ton of corrosion on the battery. Well we were able to "jump" the battery and get the car started. Took the car back to the dealership and had a complete battery service on the car for free because they told me my battery was fine and good at the time of service but in fact was not. Then they had to replace the battery because it was dead. And this battery was only 2 years old.

Then Friday, 07/17/20 while on 95 NB to NYC to see my family, I started noticing something very strange with the RPM on my car. It was jumping up to 3-4 RPM like I was accelerating but I in fact was not. So I thought it might have been a computer glitch from when I started the car back up after filling up the gas tank (from half to full) for the road trip. So I pulled over in DE at a rest stop, turned the car off for about 5 minutes and then restarted. So, I get back on 95 NB and proceed. Then it got worse! We were on the DE bridge (if anyone knows that bridge you would know that's not a place for this to happen). The car didn't really want to accelerate up that bridge and there was only 2 lanes because there is currently construction on the bridge. So we make it over the bridge and get to the NJ turnpike.

As I am on the phone (using Carplay) talking to my S/O father, I just got my turnpike ticket and the car wouldn't MOVE AT ALL! So now I am nervous and scared because I am in the middle of the road and the car isn't trying to go forward from a stop. So as I am attempting to move the car over to the shoulder the car starts to accelerate again, so we are like, "Okay, let's get to NYC and we will figure it out there what to do." So the car seems to get itself together the longer we are on the turnpike. My S/O dad said it may have been bad gas. So we get to the Woodrow Wilson Service Stop (which I usually do) and go in, come back out, and try to drive the car over to the service area to get Octane Buster for the gas to see if that resolves the issue. NOPE! THE CAR DOES NOT GO FORWARD OR BACKWARDS! The dang transmission WENT OUT! WTH!

I have had 16 cars (DJM lol) in my life and NEVER had anything like this happen but from the very 1st car that I had that had almost 200,000 miles on it. This is a 2018 NISSAN ALTIMA with only 60K on it! THIS SHOULD NOT BE HAPPENING! Me and my sister were STUCK on the NJ turnpike! Thank GOD we have AAA Premier Membership! First of all, if you ever break down on the turnpike just know that your towing service cannot tow you from the turnpike, NJ Turnpike Authorities have to tow you first WHICH IS A SEPARATE TOWING FEE! Then your tow service will tow you from there which is ANOTHER FEE! This was ALL FREE because I have AAA. If you don't have it I HIGHLY recommend you getting it!

Anyway, I had my car towed from NJ back to Baltimore, MD to the NISSAN dealership, I contacted the Service Manager IMMEDIATELY when it first happened and she is on top of this because I AM NOT PLAYING AT ALL WITH NISSAN! I am a single mother of 3 and am supposed to have a reliable car! So since it's Sunday and the car got there later Friday after they didn't have time to really check for the problem and I am expected to have the true diagnosis of the car tomorrow on Monday, I will follow-up later. But this is the worse experience I have ever had with a "new" car.

My drama didn't end there though because the rental car that I was given from Hertz in NJ that I had to take an Uber for, battery died in NYC! But "jump started" that car and at least made it back to Baltimore safely and had to exchange that rental car for another one yesterday. Hopefully my life will calm down once Nissan fixes this issue. If anyone else has an transmission issues with a 2018 Altima please share! I would appreciate to hear your experience. Thanks!