Engine wiring loom fault

[Paul Woolley]

Just got my 2014 NP300 Navara back from Nissan who have fixed a chafed engine wiring loom that caused the engine to cut out when driving. The fix was relatively easy and wasn't that expensive at £360.48, the majority of which was labor the only item used was a fuse. they found the chafed wire, re-insulated and replaced the blow fuse. I asked my dealer if Nissan would cover the cost, the car is only 8 month out of warranty and only covered 40,000 miles as a 1 owner company car with a full service history and no accident damage. The fault must have been due to a manufacturing issue not wear and tear, has anybody else come across this issue or is it a one off, has anybody had any luck escalating this with Nissan, I raised a case with Nissan UK but they just called me and said it was out of warranty so there is nothing they can do. Don't they have a duty to fix any issues resulting from a manufacturing issue at such a low mileage.

 

[tweak'e]

i would be interested of some pics of it.

unfortunately out of warranty and even in warranty all depends on how much of ahole the dealer or nissan wants to be.

 

[Paul Woolley]

I did have a look last night, its hard to see any repairs as they have used tape the same as the original but I think its the main loom that runs over the front of the engine under the plastic cover, it looks like the plastic cover is pushing the loom onto the bracket, I can see the polished area on the bracket where its been rubbing and what looks like some new insulation tape, its hard to say as under the cover the tape looks newer and cleaner here anyway. Will try to get a picture of it.

Given I would expect a wiring loom to last the life of the car I don't think 40,000 miles and under 6 years acceptable, we had a similar issue with an Evoque, a trapped wire on the SOS module caused it to fail out of warranty, the cost of the repair was vastly larger as it needed a whole new module and a lot more work as it was in a difficult location, the car was out of warranty but paid for in full by Land Rover as they accepted it was an assembly fault.

I don't expect my dealer to have to pay for this, they did an excellent job getting it repaired so quickly, I would have been happy with an apology from Nissan and a token voucher for something towards a service, to be fair its not the money, I can afford it what I wanted was some form of acceptance they messed up as the fault could have caused a serious accident as I lost the engine while driving, it was in a 30 zone but I could have been in the fast lane of a motorway and not here today to be writing this.

Guess the moral of the story is if you want customer service buy a Land Rover not a Nissan, not something I thought I would say, I thought Nissan were better than this.

 

[redkite]

You could try to persuade Nissan with a claim on "reasonable expected life", which is a EU consumer protection thingie that might have survived Brexit.
But 8 yrs is probably considered a "reasonable expected life" for a car, or at least "reasonable to need some repair".

Whether Land Rover has better customer service.... isn't that because Land Rovers fail much quicker

 

[Paul Woolley]

Hi Redkite, I would struggle to accept 8 years as a reasonable life for a car, yes you might start getting faults in the moving parts but not at 40,000 miles. I would expect a wiring loom to last much longer than 10 years, never had an issue with one yet, my 8 year old Range Rover Sport has been faultless, its done double the mileage and although the Navara has been good the RRS has had less issues in my ownership, might have just been lucky, my wife's Evoque only had the SOS module issue in 5 years of ownership personally I think they get bad press I have owned many Land Rovers and not had any real problems even after covering some pretty high mileages. I will try writing to Nissan and try to claim on the "reasonable expected life" route, my initial claim they just called back and said it was fair wear and tear and I couldn't claim further.